


Safe Harbour

by Escapologist



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Aid worker Natasha, Aid worker Nick Fury, Aid worker Sam, Aid worker Steve, Alternate Universe - Aid Agency, Anxiety, Approved by actual Russians, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Brief mentions of past Steve / OMCs, British! Sam Wilson, Brooklyn, Canonical Character Death, Conspiracy, Drinking, Drinking & Talking, Espionage, Flashbacks, Haiti, Heavy Drinking, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, London, M/M, Memory Loss, Minor Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers, Mutual Pining, Natural Disasters, News Media, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Refugees, Sexual Content, So much drinking, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, Top Steve Rogers, Well one Russian with exceptionally good taste, brief Bucky/Dot, but no actual abuse, i need a drink, photographer bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 23:18:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 80,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9928400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Escapologist/pseuds/Escapologist
Summary: After a dramatic incident in his late teens, Steve Buchanan ends up miles away from Brooklyn, working for global aid agency Shield International in London. He tries to lose himself in work to forget about everything he left behind, but ten years later he still hasn’t moved on very far, and he might even be starting to crack. Sometimes if feels like trying to do good in the world is a losing battle, and doesn't bring him any closer to seeing Bucky Barnes again.On a relief mission to Haiti with his best friends Sam and Natasha, the different strands of his life come together to bring him back to Brooklyn, and back into the firing line of an organisation he thought he'd seen the back of. If Steve's learned anything from a decade of disasters, though, it's that love and happiness can find a way through the direst of circumstances.Featuring aid worker Steve, real person Natasha, British Sam (WHAT) and photographer Bucky.Chapter 17: Bucky joins Steve in London, and they set about fitting together.Their various issues continue to behave like those ghosts in Super Mario, which sneak up when you stop watching them.YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE GHOSTS FOR TOO LONG, BOYS.





	1. London

**London, 2016**

A tube carriage screeches and rattles through the dark tunnel, and inside Steve Buchanan and his fellow commuters studiously avoid each other’s gazes. He closes his eyes, trying to zone out to escape the squash of bodies all around him, but that only makes him more aware of their scents; perfume, deodorant, leather, last night’s cigarettes, last week’s shirt that didn’t make the wash. _The subway is friendlier,_ Steve thinks. _The artificial light is… warmer. There’s more headroom._ Nearly ten years based in London, and he still misses New York City every day.

He politely wriggles out of the doors at Old Street, emerges into a dull, dirty, grayscale morning and queues up for a Starbucks coffee and breakfast muffin, both of which are reliably serviceable whichever country you’re in. He should know; in the years since he joined Shield International, he has seen a lot of airports. A lot of capital cities. More disaster zones than most people could bear.

He flashes his battered ID at the security guard and passes through the glass doors into the lobby, which might once have looked stylish. It’s clean, and light, but has a worn feel of which Steve feels inordinately fond. Nerd that he is, he actually feels a swell of pride when he glances at the painting of Shield’s bird logo: an eagle silhouetted in black on white with its wings spread protectively.

“How you doing, Dionne?” he greets the receptionist as he passes her desk.

“Mawnin’,” she replies with a wink, smiling coyly. Steve is never sure if she appreciates his muscular physique or if she just wants to mother him. He still feels a bit like a fish out of water, unable to settle properly, and people always seem to want to help him call this city home. Or maybe it’s he who is looking for that; the sense of belonging that so far remains outside his grasp. He can never go home again - not really.

He takes the lift (elevator) up to the sixth floor and trudges, head down, to his shared office, passing framed publicity posters from Shield fundraising appeals and awareness campaigns over the last seven decades. A visual record of wars and natural disasters, contrasting images of devastation with the smiling faces of those who have survived it. 

Most people here work in open-plan pods under strip lighting. The computers are current, even if the internal systems are constantly collapsing, and the communal kitchen is nice, but the carpet tiles have seen better days.

Only one or two people have started work as Steve arrives at his desk at 7.59, just as he always does when in London. He has long since given up trying to beat Natasha; his colleague seems to have a special knack for staying ahead of him.

“Good weekend, Steve?” she smiles. Steve notices that she’s changed her hairstyle again, but doesn’t mention it.

“Mm hmm,” he replies through slurps of coffee. “Not bad, thanks.”

This is a lie, justified by the convention of smalltalk. Steve spent the whole weekend at the gym or in his apartment, speaking to no-one, and it was bad. He suspects that Nat knows this but is choosing to let it slide.

“Did you see that Fury’s put a meeting in for 9 o’clock? Happy fucking Monday,” she says.

*

The meeting is a big one, with senior people from every department of the humanitarian aid agency gathering in the boardroom, one side of which has a distractingly good view of the city of London. 

Nick Fury is a tough, experienced, if somewhat enigmatic CEO, who exudes a perpetual air of intolerance for any kind of bullshit. Steve thinks he likes him, mostly; not all of the maddening bureaucracy in this place is Fury’s fault. He takes a seat directly opposite the boss.

“Thank you for joining me so early on a Monday morning,” begins Fury in stern, deliberate tones. He’s a fellow American, but it’s not like he and Steve hang out and talk about NFL scores and corn dogs and Thanksgiving.

“Some of you will have noticed over the weekend,” Fury continues, “That our friends at WorldNews have begun another round of shit-on-the-good-guys.” He passes out printouts of an article from an appallingly tacky yet extremely popular news site entitled ‘Where’s the money gone? How the aid agencies waste your cash’. 

Most people in the room are aware of the piece and are rolling their eyes and sighing. Steve didn’t see the story – he was too busy trying to block out the world over the weekend – but he’s heard it all before. Charity-bashing is a common media theme.

Sometimes these stories carry pictures of Fury himself, since he is a classic hate figure for the right-wing press; a powerful, successful black man with a somewhat intimidating appearance, given his fondness for black leather overcoats and his insistence on covering his blind eye with a patch.

“…And on the next page,” Fury is saying, “You will see the usual bullshit conflating the refugees we are trying to support with terrorists.

“Public trust in us is at an all-time low. We can’t afford to lose any more donor support,” the CEO continues. “Pepper’s team is preparing our response, and will circulate it today, but I don’t need to remind you people how vigilant we all need to be. Please remind your teams that we are under scrutiny, and we need to make sure we are doing everything right.

“Street fundraisers. Suppliers. Partnerships. ESPECIALLY field ops. We’ve got to be whiter than white. Any slip-ups will seriously impact our reputation and our donor base.”

Steve is rarely hesitant to speak up in meetings.

“Nick, it’s not enough just to respond. If any of what they’re saying is actually true of Shield, we need to be better.”

“Thank you Steve,” glowers Fury. “As we will say in our statement, we will be reviewing all our programmes to ensure we make best use of funds. 

“But we need to be careful, too. It’s crucial that our people respect boundaries when we’re out there running the camps or bringing in relief. We cannot have any hint of corruption, or mismanagement, or, heaven forbid, child abuse, on our watch.”

Steve interrupts again. “Nick, my teams are well aware of how to act in the field. We train them all the time…”

“GOOD, Buchanan, but please will you REMIND them, AGAIN,” intones Fury, already weary. “We all do our bit to make sure we don’t get another Bangui on our hands. Ever.”

This reference stings, and it’s meant to; the previous year, a UN aid worker had blown the whistle on horrific child abuse by peacekeeping troops in the Central African Republic. The aid sector at large had been devastated, no exaggeration.

“Anyway. WorldNews seems to have made a mission out of trying to make us look bad. And that pisses me off. Call me crazy, but I would prefer for our activities to have a net positive effect.”  
The room murmurs agreement.

“There is already a lot of public hostility towards the people we try to help, particularly when they become refugees, and scepticism towards organisations like ours. Agencies like WorldNews will exploit that without mercy. We know they are not above creating a scandal from almost nothing, especially when it involves the good guys.”

He seems to be finished now.

“Speaking of that,” chips in Pepper Potts, the director of communications, “Did you all see those pictures of Wanda Maximoff doing drugs?”

Even Steve is aware of Wanda Maximoff, a teenage pop star with a squeaky-clean image, a bazillion impressionable young fans and a large number of contracts and endorsements. The room sniggers at her misfortune.

“Poor kid,” says Natasha. “There was no context for those pictures. We don’t know what was really going on. Yet another bastard saw an opportunity to make some money out of her.”

“That’s exactly why I brought it up,” replies Pepper. “The pics are not clear evidence by themselves, but she has still lost sponsorship deals and her talent show judging slot over them, and PLEASE NOTE,” she continues, getting more serious, “That most of you took delight in seeing her image ruined.”

“Point taken, Miss Potts,” says Fury, making eye contact all around the table. He does this more terrifyingly with one eye than other people can manage with two. There is a pause while the team tries to take on board the lessons learned from the painful experience of Wanda Maximoff.

“Nick, I gotta ask…” Steve starts up again. “Why are we focusing on being defensive here? I mean, yeah, we need to have our house in order, but we need to be pushing our message out there too. I think it’s up to us to give people a voice. Either speak up for them, or give them a platform, you know?”

“This again, Buchanan?” Fury is getting really tired now, and he’s only fifteen minutes into his week.

“With respect, Nick, I really think we should be challenging all the awful pieces complaining about child refugees being brought to the UK. Look, these guys” – he waves the printed article Fury circulated – “are deliberately stirring up hate about these kids, doubting their ages, saying they shouldn’t even be here. I mean, we work with these people in the field, we know their stories. If we don’t speak up for them then what the hell are we doing here?” Steve has got increasingly loud and impassioned. “We need to start calling out the media on their bullshit reporting.”

“Steve, I appreciate your opinion, but you are well aware that we are in a delicate position when it comes to public opinion,” recites the CEO for the thousandth time. “We can’t risk antagonising our supporter base.”

“I’m with Steve on this.”

The table turns to the bearded Londoner on Steve’s right. Sam Wilson only joined Shield a couple of years ago, but alongside Natasha he’s become Steve’s closest friend in this bizarre second act of his life. Is that sad? That his only two real friends are work people?

“What do you have to add, Sam?” says Fury, looking unexcited to hear the health project manager’s contribution.

“We can’t let this stuff go,” Sam asserts, glancing at Steve and exchanging a nod. “I read something the other day which basically argued that because some refugee kids have mobile phones, they must be faking. As if they love living in shitty makeshift camps all winter. Christ, Nick, you know the more people believe this crap, the more the government plays up to them by turning these kids away.”

Others at the table are nodding.

“I think it’s time, Nick,” says Natasha. “We’re looking at the biggest refugee crisis since Shield began, since World War 2, and governments are doing nothing. We have to step up and fight.”

“WE are the ones who can tell the real story,” resumes Sam, “And we should be telling it every bloody chance we get. So what, we lose a few supporters? We might find we get some new ones if we grow some balls.”

“Pepper?” asks Fury, wearily.

“I mean, from a media point of view, it would be great to be able to go out with a strong message challenging this type of article,” replies the perfectly groomed blonde. “We could definitely get attention, but the trick would be to make sure it was the right kind of attention. That we could do something positive for public opinion.”

“Fine.” says Fury. “I will leave you three to put together some messages and bring them back to me. Then I will run them by the board.”

“Great,” says Steve, sarcastically. “I look forward to having their permission to say on the record that teenagers might deserve a chance at life.”

Fury gives him a hard look as the meeting is dismissed.

*

One of many things that Steve still finds strange about London life is the post-work drinking culture. Here, people will go straight to the pub after leaving the office, drink for hours without eating, weave their way home via some disgusting fast food outlet, and spend all of the next day complaining about how horrible they feel, as though it’s somehow surprising.

Steve finds he has a pretty good tolerance for alcohol. He never joins the hardcore pub crowd, but he still enjoys the odd beer at the Hope and Anchor after work with Sam. Proper beer, that is – cold and bubbly.

“I just don’t know how you can drink that stuff.”

Steve has criticised Sam’s taste in flat British ale for as long as they’ve been friends. Rituals are comforting.

“You can’t handle real booze,” is his friend’s practised retort.

“Cheers.”

“Bottoms up.”

He glances across the table and Sam raises his glass, his dark brown eyes glinting with amusement and good humour. Steve clinks and slurps, and they sit in companionable silence for a few moments. Steve likes this place, with its cosy atmosphere, hearty snacks and quotes from British poets on the walls, and he likes being in Sam’s company.

Like many people on Shield’s staff, Sam is ex-armed forces - ex-RAF, to be precise - and he still sports the close-cropped afro and gym-honed biceps of his days as a paramedic with the air force. He completed three tours before retiring from active duty.

It’s awe-inspiring, really, how Sam can be so positive after that, and so cheerful, given the horrors he faced. Mostly he keeps himself in the present, but there are times when he needs catharsis, when he speaks honestly about what he saw while serving.

Steve can’t respond with his own story, but he has heard Sam’s tales of soldiers’ piteous, mutilated final moments and the bloody realities war wreaks on innocents. He knows as well as Sam does how hellish it is to be out there without enough resources to help the desperate.

Sam’s real tragedy, the one that made him turn his back on war zones, wasn’t the child he couldn’t save or the 21-year-old squaddie he sent home without his limbs. It was watching a chopper piloted by his best friend shot out of the sky before his eyes. Minutes beforehand, Sam had urged them to rush their patient to the field hospital. No-one had made it out.

Steve sometimes wishes he could tell his friend that he understands what it feels like, to see that, to feel helpless and bereft and furious and devastated. But even if he could, would his experience really compare to being on the frontlines? Steve tells himself no. Mostly he’s grateful to have made a friend who is happy to be around him without pushing too much. He usually listens in silence.

“Thanks for backing me up today, man,” Steve says, finally, clinking glasses and then slurping at his pint.

“You know what, you were absolutely right mate. I’m sick of letting those shitty stories pass,” Sam replies. “I know immigration is a controversial issue, or whatever, but it’s like people can’t grasp that refugees are _different_ from economic migrants. Have some fucking compassion, for chrissake! I really want to answer back!”

He’s preaching to the converted, but it makes them both feel better to vent a bit.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. “Well, at least we made a bit of headway today. I feel like Fury is pretty much over the constant media hate campaigns.”

“Hmmm…” Sam gulps his pint and necks a fistful of peanuts. 

Sam speaks again.

“Did you know Alexander Pierce was Fury’s college roommate?”

Steve splutters into his pint. Pierce is probably the most powerful media mogul in the world, and his conglomerate owns newspapers, newswires and TV networks worldwide, under the banner of WorldNews. “How the fuck did I not know that?”

“Because you stay out of office gossip. Which is a bad move, by the way.”

“How do you know?”

“Nat told me.”

“Of course she did.”

“Fury doesn’t like people to know about it, for obvious reasons. Sometimes I wonder if this media bullshit is personal between the two of them.” Sam posits.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Steve doesn’t have a former college roommate. He was going to, he was supposed to, but nothing worked out the way he planned. It really would have been fun; he and Bucky, in a room, or maybe even an apartment of their own. Sky would have been the limit, he knows it.

“Steve.”

He must have zoned out again.

“Sorry, what?”

“I was saying, it’s weird to think they could have been friends once.”

“Huh?”

“Pierce? And Fury?”

Steve nods.

“What on your mind, mate?”

Steve glances at him, looks down.

“Want another? My round.” 

Steve acquiesces easily, relieved that Sam has instinctively pulled back after putting him on the spot. He watches his friend queue cheerfully at the bar, casual in jeans and a grey sweater among the dark-suited city types with their ties stuffed into their pockets, the sockless, hairstyled ‘creatives’, the self-consciously scruffy college students and the old-timers, who have likely been in the pub all afternoon. He feels a pang of longing for Brooklyn.

Sam is laughing with the barman about something. He slurps the top of his own pint before making his way back to their table, and Steve wonders if maybe he could actually confide in this man. It’s so easy to talk to him, trust him.

“So, you want to tell me what you’re moping about this time?” Sam nudges him with his elbow, a mix of teasing and kindness.

“Just… you know. Old times,” confesses Steve, peeling at the corner of a paper beer mat.

Sam and Natasha know more about Steve’s past than anyone. He’s told them more than he really should, which still isn’t much.

“Noo Yawk City huh?”

Sam’s accent is terrible. Steve smiles, ruefully.

“It’s a great place. Why don’t you go back, if you miss it so much? You talk about it all the time but I’ve never known you to go there. You even ducked out of the Disaster Relief Summit last year, and that’s in DC, not even your town. It’s like you’re avoiding the place.”

Steve shrugs. He has nearly peeled the entire top layer of paper off the beer mat, but it hasn’t come away cleanly; some stubborn patches have stayed attached, and those can be tricky to remove.

“I needed a bit of distance, that’s all.”

“If I had to guess,” grins Sam over the top of his beer, “Knowing you as I do, I’d say you picked a fight and it got out of hand.”

Steve can’t help but smile at that, hoping Sam misses the bitterness beneath it.

“Who was it? Your mum? Boss? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?” Sam’s laughing at Steve’s discomfort, but he hasn’t got anywhere near the truth yet.

“You know me pal,” Steve sighs. “Can’t take shit lying down.”

Sam purses his lips, half smiling.

“Like with Fury? Or WorldNews? Or the fucking… the anti-fracking committee?” 

Steve snorts. 

“Yeah, yeah. And the rest. You know what, Steve? I wish you would pick your battles a bit more, mate. You don’t have to fight all of them at once. You can’t. Sometimes you have to walk away and bide your time.”

Steve sighs at that. Sometimes Sam reminds him so much of Bucky; maybe that’s why he likes him.

He wonders what it would be like to be able to walk away from a battle instead of charging headlong into it. 

*

Steve calls it a night after a couple of pints and goes home to make dinner and sit in his sparsely decorated flat alone, because who else would be there? He chose his place primarily for the security; there’s CCTV, and three locks on his front door, plus a wrought iron security gate which sits over the top of it.

He orders takeout, and reads, and breathes, and does a few sit-ups, and listens to music from ten years ago, and tries to force himself to stop thinking about work and everything else. When he gets into bed, though, he can’t sleep, and anger and resentment seep up through his bones like hot, sticky tar. He tosses, turns and dozes, gets up with the sun and heads to the gym when it opens, so he can wrap his fists and let the blackness cover him.

He thinks about his mother, who gave him so much love and worked so hard and didn’t deserve the ending she got. He thinks about his old friends, whose camaraderie had come to mean so much to him, and how they would have no idea why he left them. He thinks about Erskine, who believed in him, and he thinks about Hydra, and all the people they hurt before he stopped them. And he thinks about Bucky, who had a good heart and beautiful eyes, who would follow him into any situation, no matter how insane, and who paid for that loyalty, and who would never know how doggedly and dotingly and completely Steve loved him, because for all his pig-headed bravery, he had been too cowardly to tell him. And he damn near splits the punchbag at the seams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to anyone who reads this! I've been trying to write it for months and some of it has been overtaken by the fucking ridiculous events of the last little while, so I'm trying to rewrite a bit. The world has changed so much since I started.
> 
> If anyone out there actually finds it interesting, I'd love to get someone to beta the rest - ideally someone who lives in the US or knows about American stuff. I've written quite a lot of scenes based there and some of the time, quite frankly, I haven't got a scooby doo what I'm on about.
> 
> Also I started making a [tumblr](https://escapologistldn.tumblr.com/) and I almost know how to use it.


	2. Landmarks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brooklyn and Bucky Barnes / Haiti and Natasha Romanoff.

**Brooklyn, 2003**

When Steve and Bucky were 14, Bucky got a bottom-of-the-range camera. 

He was actually pretty lucky to get one at all, given that his mom had been struggling for money since his no-good dad had left. Bucky had been desperate to get a camera of his own ever since he had borrowed one from school in seventh grade, and when his birthday came around he finally got his wish. Now he wouldn’t stop playing with it, although he could barely afford the film, let alone the cost of developing the photos.

“Get outta my face, Buck.”

Steve was sitting on a bench in McLaughlin Park, trying to eat a sandwich while shielding his face from his best friend, who was attempting to take a picture of him. He was slender where the other boy was athletic, and a good few inches shorter. Blond, slightly greasy hair fell in his face and his clear blue eyes narrowed in Bucky’s direction.

“Why? You look good, baby!”

Bucky was just fooling around, playing the part of a sleazy photographer, but Steve’s face felt suddenly warmer anyway. Like his friend, he was in sweatpants and an old T-shirt, but even if he hadn’t been he was doubtful that he looked ‘good’. It tickled him to hear Bucky say it, though.

The day is so bright in Steve’s memory: the saturated blue of the late summer sky, the green grass, a bed of bright red flowers against the dusty concrete and duller red and blue markings of the basketball courts. Trees in full leaf. Flashes of orange neon on Bucky’s sneakers, the logo on his backpack. Long, sharp shadows in the after-school sun.

“Cut it out. I’m eating here!”

“Just lemme get one of you. Come oooon.”

Steve gave in and offered a sarcastic expression to the camera, before dropping his gaze to the ground to hide his genuine smile. 

“Gotcha!” crowed Bucky. “This camera is terrible. But luckily I’m an artistic genius.”

“Yeah, well, you should try learning to draw,” Steve mumbled, through a mouthful of crumbs. “Like a REAL artist.”

“Like you? It takes you, like, two HOURS to draw one picture,” Bucky retorted.

“That’s because it takes _time,_ and _practice,_ to learn a proper _skill,_ my friend. You wouldn’t understand because you can’t concentrate on anything for more than two minutes.”

“Hey, I focused on Shannon Taylor for at least 30 minutes in this very park last week,” Bucky winked.

Steve giggled. Girls loved Bucky, and he couldn’t really blame them; his friend always knew how to say the right thing and was, like, objectively good-looking. Classic jaw, that dimpled chin, grey-blue eyes people talked about, possibly there was something about his mouth…

“Maybe I’ll draw her,” he said. “I think she would appreciate my gentlemanly ways.”

Bucky smirked, but didn’t pursue the subject of Shannon Taylor. “You are stuck in the past, buddy,” he teased, instead. “Photos are the future. The internet is gonna be all about photos.”

“Gee Bucky, what’s the internet?” Steve drawled. 

That made Bucky laugh. “Whatcha got there?” he asked, leaning heavily against Steve’s side to crane over his lunch box.

“Tuna. You?”

“Just cheese.” Bucky snatched the remaining half of Steve’s sandwich and replaced it with half of his own. They chewed in silence, huddled close together on the wide bench. When Steve closes his eyes and thinks of that day he can smell fresh bread and car fumes, a faint whiff of weed smoke, and Bucky’s familiar deodorant. At the time he wasn’t particularly aware of the smell, but once or twice since he has caught it on the street, or on the bus, and been sent spiralling into his head for the rest of the day.

Bucky finished up and started fiddling with his camera.

Glancing across the basketball courts, Steve waved a hand in response to a group of boys who had just arrived. “Gabe’s here, Buck.”

Bucky looked up, then stood to join them. “C’mon Steve! We needja!”

Steve got to his feet and brushed himself down. He was pretty poor at sports, given that his smallish frame lacked strength and pace, and he had yet to fulfil early hopes that he might grow out of his childhood asthma. Bucky and their friends loved to hang out and play basketball, though, and Steve put in as strong as showing as he could every week out of sheer bloody-minded determination. Exercise was good for him, he was constantly reminded, and anyhow he wouldn’t miss the chance to hang out with the guys.

Knocking shoulders and elbows as they went, the two of them strolled over to meet Gabe and their buddies Jim Morita, Jack Dernier and Tim Dugan. They split into teams and tossed the ball around for a while, taking a few practice shots, before progressing into deadly competition. Steve pushed himself hard but got frustrated when he tired easily.

Bucky, Steve and Gabe’s team was trailing a little bit when Steve found some space in the middle of the court. Bucky passed him the ball, and cheered wildly as Steve sank a flukey three-pointer.

Steve grinned and flexed his somewhat feeble biceps in victory, basking in the applause. Bucky was always in his corner. He couldn’t really remember a time when Bucky hadn’t been there, and he kind of wondered if everyone had a friend this good.

Bucky was cool.

 

**London, 2016**

Although Steve is pretty sure Natasha Romanov is his friend, she remains a little enigmatic. She’s Russian by birth but her English is flawless, and although she seems to be close to him in age, she also gives the impression that she’s lived a great deal. They got to know each other on Steve’s first deployment – the Haiti earthquake mission in 2010, back when Fury was still in charge of field ops – and in the face of tragedies like that it’s impossible not to bond with the people on your team. The Shield team was one of the first on the scene.

Steve had been fired up, and he landed in Santo Domingo full of vigour and determination. When their jeep crossed the border into Haiti and took them into Port au Prince, his back straightened and his shoulders squared. He took in the seas of rubble, the mounds of grey, sunbleached bricks, twisted steel tendons and collapsed, rusty iron roofing sheets stretching away on all sides, everything made hazy by the dust clouds that hadn’t yet settled. Throngs of dazed, grubby, directionless people, moving about for the sake of moving.

He hadn’t been braced, though, for the human devastation. Even if you’re watching one of the more reliable news channels, images of loss of life and livelihood don’t seem real; not until you’re holding the hand of a terrified orphan, or a grieving grandmother, or passing out supplies to a hollow-eyed man who hadn’t been able to protect his own family. But Nat had done this before. She stood at his back at all the toughest moments and steadied him.

Something in him raged, but he felt curiously calm, as though he was in the right place for the first time in years. He was energised and able to think clearly, acting almost on instinct. Autofocus. A bit more bite at the back of his lungs, a quickness to get to his feet and move.

Assigned to relief distribution alongside Natasha, Steve rose to the task instantly, pioneering a new system which worked so well that it was soon adopted as standard. He would spend time visiting each makeshift camp and talking to the people there in not-terrible French, before picking up as much as he could of the more widely-spoken local Creole. Steve’s plan was to encourage the displaced to appoint leaders who could take on the job of distributing aid to their own communities. In doing so he managed to restore some autonomy to people who might otherwise have slid into victimhood, and provided them with an incentive to keep going.

Natasha had watched approvingly as Steve repeatedly raised the importance of psychological support for disaster victims. Shield couldn’t do much in 2010, but in the intervening years the organisation slowly began to source volunteer therapists who could join the emergency teams.

He’d learned the hard way, too, on this mission, that the guidelines on professional distance were in place for good reason. Initially he’d been incredulous when Nat prevented him from pitching a tent in the middle of the camp alongside the Haitians, directing him instead to a humble, but sturdy, adapted container near the Shield base. 

“I’m no better than them,” he’d complained. “I don’t deserve better.”

“No argument on this,” she had rejoined. “Shield insists we stay separate for the protection of the camp residents. To be frank, it’s to reduce the propensity for abuse.”

She had folder her arms, daring him to challenge her, and he’d felt the burn of resentment at such a laughable idea, but capitulated anyway. 

Days later, however, he made the only serious mistake of his career in aid work. He had been working with a girl named Nathaly, showing her how to make a lightbulb from a plastic bottle, when he realised he needed to get more bleach from his container. Not wishing to patronise her for being female, he invited her to go with him. His inexperience had betrayed him that day. When Nathaly’s aunt saw her coming out of the Shield accommodation her stare had been icy, and Nathaly was subject to taunts and disapproval for some time afterward.

“Reread the damn rules, Buchanan, we have them for a reason,” Fury had raged, and the mortification had never quite passed.

Steve had worked long hours, barely sleeping and shrugging off illness, never noticing himself flag. If he wasn’t pep talking his own team, he was talking to homeless Haitians, listening to their stories with compassion and finding out what they needed most. He argued passionately for more and more relief to be brought in and was often at loggerheads with Nick Fury, who argued back with the need to prioritise water and health above food and utensils. 

“Steve.” Natasha’s hand fell on his shoulder after a particularly heated discussion. “Look. You’ve got to understand, we can’t do everything we want to do. Financially, logistically, it’s impossible. We have to prioritise. A big part of this job is figuring out which ball to drop.”

Later that day she had come to find him with a cold beer.

“Did I ever tell you about Costa Rica?” she asked.

“Another earthquake?” Steve asked in response, only noticing the weariness in his limbs once he took the weight off them.

“Bikini holiday.” she replied, with wry amusement.

“This was the old days, before Shield. So I was, what? A thousand miles thattaway?” She stuck out an arm with a pointed finger, and Steve knew that though she made it look vague, that if he followed that finger he would land exactly on San José. 

“It was the season for the baby turtles to hatch. At the right time, you can see thousands of them crawling out of the sand and heading to the sea. It was amazing to watch.”

Steve nodded and smiled. The image was pleasantly distracting. 

“BUT!” Nat continued. “There were all these seagulls circling overhead, and they would swoop down and pick off the vulnerable little babies when they were only a few minutes old.”

Steve looks aghast that her charming story has taken such a nasty turn.

“In the natural order of things they’re supposed to hatch at night,” she continued, “and follow the moon to get to the sea, but because of light pollution, they get all fucked up and come out at the most dangerous time, and then they get confused and go the wrong way.”

“It was brutal to see it happening,” Nat said, grabbing his hand so he knew she was making a point. “But then, all these little kids showed up. I mean, some of them were really young, and kinda ragged. And do you know what they were doing?”

“Protection?” Smiled Steve.

“They were helping the baby turtles to the sea,” Natasha nodded, beaming back. “Making a wall to herd them along. Sheltering them with plastic trays. Picking up pieces of garbage that got in the way. Swatting at the seagulls! I mean, those things are BIG! I kind of couldn’t process it. You know, were they disrupting an evolutionary process, or joining in with it? They were just so joyful, making sure some of those babies had a fighting chance.”

“Cute,” Steve said. “Why didn’t they just pick them up and take them there?”

“Nope,” Nat replied, shaking her head. “Then they don’t know how to get back for when they have to lay their own eggs. Most you can do is turn them around.”

“So what did you do? Watch?”

“This was the old me,” Nat replied, darkly. “I said to one of them, in Spanish, ‘What are you doing? You can’t save all of them.’ And do you know what he said?”

Steve considered for a moment.

“Watch me save this one, then?” He supplied, a little bit smug even though he appreciated her efforts. 

Nat smiled and rolled her eyes.

“Yeah… yeah. Basically, ‘I’ll do what I can’. Look, I’m telling a story here. This was a big moment for me.”

“… If it’s even true,” Steve needled, out of habit, and fondness too, but immediately regretted it. This wasn’t Bucky.

Nat looked mock-wounded. “Look, I’m not about life-affirming proverbs,” she says. “In my story, the starving baby seagulls lose out on dinner.”

“Yeah, well…” Steve came back. “Seagulls need to find a better way to live.”

“I guess,” She said. “To make a real difference the power structures have to change. But then…”

Steve nodded. “There are always forces of nature.” He drained his beer. “Can’t do much about those.”

Natasha laughs. “Why do I get this mental image of you punching a seagull in the face?” She says. Steve spluttered with laughter.

 

She was right: Steve knew it, and while he lost none of his ardour, he learned fast that the competing needs for sustenance, shelter, sanitation, healthcare and dignity had to be balanced somehow. He spent more time with actual human beings than he had for years. While he didn’t exactly lean on them for support, he did find himself talking, processing his own experiences, even joking around sometimes. 

His friendship with Natasha strengthened and he found himself talking to her easily on quiet evenings, over military-style packaged meals. He hadn’t said too much to her about his past, but probably more than he should have; how he left New York, and wasn’t really in touch with anyone he used to know, and had no family.

“Well, I kind of know what that’s like,” Nat had said. He stayed quiet so she could go on.

“I don’t really have anyone either,” she had continued, in a matter-of-fact sort of way. “I mean, I still have one or two contacts back in Russia, but they’re not exactly… friends.”

Steve wasn’t sure how she’d react if he pushed for more information, but decided to give her the option.

“Why did you leave?” he asked.

“Pffffffffft…” She huffed, shaking her head. “I started young. In my old… career. And eventually I realised, it wasn’t the right thing. For me. I was totally disillusioned with the goals of my… organisation, and I wanted a clean start. I had experience of working internationally, I speak languages, I figured I could be useful. So one day I cleared out, came to the UK, convinced Fury to give me a chance, and tried to do something good.”

“Well, you’re doing it,” replied Steve. “You’re doing a lot of good.”

There was a pause.

“Hmm…” She offered, finally, and Steve saw a faraway look in her eyes which thought he might recognise.

 

In the six years since that mission Steve has been on countless others: Pakistan, Japan, Syria, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, tackling the damage wrought by flooding, drought, tsunami, war, Ebola. He gained a reputation at Shield, and when Fury retired from the field and took the CEO spot, he found himself head of field operations at the tender age of 28. He still thrives on deployments, but has never recaptured the fervour of that first mission to Haiti; instead, he’s drifted a little, grown frustrated by the same familiar stumbling blocks and by the knowledge that he can’t fix everything, or even much at all, for long.

But Natasha is always with him, and they make a good team. When in London they share an office. Steve values her composure, even in the most stressful situations. She’s good with tech, great with languages and has a knack for thinking quickly and making things happen, all of which make her indispensable in the field. 

She also takes a surprisingly touching interest in Steve’s wellbeing. With her ever-changing red hair, green eyes and devastating competence Nat is undeniably attractive, but Steve can’t quite explain to himself why he’s never been drawn to her romantically; maybe it’s the inkling he gets when he looks at her that she’d karate chop him in the neck if he tried anything.

 

Back in London, after lunch on Friday, Natasha yanks out her headphones and looks at Steve, which means she has decided to talk to him.

“Are you coming out tonight?” She enquires. “It’s Riz the intern’s birthday. It’s gonna be fun.”

She doesn’t look completely sincere about that last part but she will probably go anyway – drinks provide fertile ground for gathering intel on colleagues, and this is one of Nat’s special interests.

“I don’t think so, but thanks,” Steve murmurs, still looking at this screen.

“Oh come on, Steve. Sam’s coming. You only ever talk to him and me anyway.”

“Yeah… I just want to avoid socialising with work people for a little while.”

“Oh shit… are things not going so well with Rupert?”

Resistance is futile. Steve meets her eyes and gives a sheepish grimace.

“It’s all over. It actually ended pretty awkwardly…” Natasha’s expression changes from sympathetic to mischievous. 

Rupert is a very good-looking but hopelessly dull man working in tech support, and is thankfully on a short-term contract. Nat had been pleased with herself when she’d managed to persuade Steve to respond to Rupert’s obvious interest and take him for a coffee, but that had only been three weeks previously.

“Oh, now you HAVE to come to the pub and tell me all about it,” she perseveres.

“Really, Nat, I just don’t feel like it tonight. I don’t want to deal with a hangover tomorrow.”

“You always say you don’t GET hangovers,” his colleague counters.

 

**Brooklyn, 2004**

When Steve and Bucky were fifteen, Steve’s mom had to go away overnight and Bucky came over to keep him company. He arrived on the doorstep with some beers and a hip flask of vodka he had stolen from his dad’s garage.

“What the hell, Buck?” Steve grinned, suddenly feeling a bit childish for stocking up on Doritos and candy.

“I thought we’d make it a party,” his friend grinned back.

Steve didn’t really like the taste of beer, but he knew that this was something he was going to have to get past eventually, so he made himself drink it. Putting on the bravado of a seasoned boozer, Bucky half-filled two highball glasses with vodka before topping them up with coke. Both of them frowned after the first sip, but Steve wasn’t going to be the one to say it tasted awful.

“Huh. Not bad,” Bucky opined.

Bucky tugged his hoodie off, and for a brief moment his T-shirt rode up, exposing a strip of skin. Steve remembers that the sight of it confused and dazzled him so he had to blink it away, a kind of flash blindness, as if he’d accidentally looked at the sun and not his friend’s taut midriff.

They settled on the battered brown leather couch with piles of chips and dips and oven pizza. They hadn’t noticed night fall, and now the streetlight outside watched them so intently that Steve stomped over to draw the curtain. The apartment felt cosy, like Sarah Rogers; she and Steve had painted the lounge a warm terracotta colour, and the cheap wooden furniture she had acquired over the years was now almost old enough to become chic. Her beloved rag rug covered the shabby carpet in colourful stripes.

Steve had initially cringed when she hung a couple of his school paintings up, but he didn’t really notice them anymore. They were just part of the landscape, like the photo of him as a baby on the lap of his long-dead father, the picture of Steve and Sarah, each looking pale and slender on a beach in Florida, and the snap of Steve and Bucky aged about 11, arms round each other’s’ shoulders, beaming and proudly displaying their hotdogs on a day trip to Coney Island.

Bucky flicked through some channels in search of a bad horror movie.

“Cabin in the Woods! Awesome, this should be terrible,” he grinned.

The film lent itself well to Bucky’s incredulous commentary, and soon Steve was cracking up so bad he had hiccups. The actors were hammy, the characters made poor decisions, and the boys howled with laughter at their own jokes.

“His name is Grimm? Really?”

“Woooah, don’t get stoned, kids. That’s an obvious road to ruin.”

“Great, a scary hermit. Yeah, cool, let’s shoot him with guns!”

“Ooh shit, now we made the local people angry. SOMEONE’S GONNA REGRET THIS!”

The drinks were gross but very quickly Steve began to blur and drift. His limbs grew warm and heavy and his skin glowed, hungrily. A sex scene took him by surprise and he blushed so hard that he prayed Bucky wouldn’t look over and notice; clumsily, he tried to hide his embarrassment behind chatter. 

“Hey, Buck, ya think you would beat me to death with a shovel to spare me from death by flesh-eating disease?”

Bucky just turned his head towards Steve and smiled for a long moment, glazed eyes and soft focus, before shrugging and turning back to the movie. Steve felt like they had slipped into an alternate reality.

Slowly, slowly like tectonic plates, the two of them slid down the couch, drifting closer until their shoulders bumped and their upper arms pressed together. He kept trying to snigger at the events onscreen, but Steve was feeling tremors where they touched. He wasn’t surprised, exactly, by the way Bucky could so casually put his whole system on high alert like that; it was just that he could feel that something big which had been lurking in his peripheral vision was poised to slide right into view, and after that he wouldn’t be able to look away. 

Bucky’s attention was still fixed on the TV and he showed no sign of finding the contact weird, so Steve stared straight ahead, frozen. He knew alcohol could interfere with memory; maybe that’s why he had no idea the next day how the movie had ended.

The beer was making him tremble slightly, making his heartbeat echo in his ears. His face was flushed with drink. Bucky’s cheek against his shoulder. Bucky’s hair tickling his ear.

Steve’s left side against Bucky’s right, as they always automatically arranged themselves. Looking back, was that the time when they softened enough to mould to each other? Steve thinks he felt the absence of Bucky on his upper arm ever afterwards. That’s where the longing concentrates, usually.

The credits rolled, a haunted ballad played, and Steve could no longer pretend to be so absorbed in the film that he hadn’t noticed how close Bucky was. He sat up suddenly, propelled by a surge of panic and a raging thirst, and began to struggle to his feet.

“Where’re ya goin’?” Bucky smiled lazily up at him from the couch, his eyes heavy.

“Waaaater,” Steve replied, making an exaggerated drink gesture with his hand. Bucky stuck his thumb in the air earnestly to say ‘good call’.

Steve tried to stand but bright spots appeared in his vision and he stumbled, teetered, the room spinning and jerking around him. He lunged forward, trying to reach the wall for balance, but misjudged the distance, and…

Bucky was there. Bucky stuck his arms under Steve’s and wrapped them around his chest, catching him, righting him. 

“Woah there,” he said, softly, and his voice was simultaneously far away and right in Steve’s ear. 

Steve froze, then giggled, and Bucky chuckled behind him, the sound reverberating through his chest and into Steve’s. The giggle grew and became a laugh, and Steve half-turned, laughing, and Bucky pulled him in, Steve’s head squashed into his chest, and began to sway from one foot to the other.

It was a joke, a mockery of the song still playing over the end credits of the movie. Steve wrapped his arms around Bucky’s middle and followed, turning slow circles in an ironic dance in Steve’s living room.

Eventually the laughter subsided and they broke apart, still clutching at each other’s arms. It felt as though the light in the room was much too bright. Steve looked up at his friend, smelt the booze on him, found he couldn’t quite describe the colour of Bucky’s eyes. His heart skipped. His mouth went dry. His stomach churned.

“Um, Bucky, I…”

Bucky’s dopey grin dropped below a furrowed brow. “Are you OK?”

“I gotta…”

Only the fear of permanently staining his mother’s rug and having to explain himself enabled Steve to reach the bathroom before vomiting up the contents of his stomach.

Later that night, with Bucky passed out on the couch cushions by the side of his bed, Steve stared at the ceiling and his arm still glowed where Bucky had pressed up against it. He replayed the way Bucky had held him, and swayed, and laughed, on an endless loop in his mind, and kept his hands behind his head, and told himself the feeling in his gut was drink-induced nausea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try and post some relevant pics etc. on my fucking [tumblr](https://escapologistldn.tumblr.com/)


	3. Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve Rogers, remorseless party wrecker for life.
> 
> (In which Natasha and Bucky take their turns at despairing of Steve's party skills)

**London, 2016**

Steve detests awards ceremonies, fundraisers and corporate events of any kind, but he’s fairly senior at Shield now, so occasionally duty calls on him to don a suit, put on his friendly face and turn up. This evening he’s going to present a prize at the Humanitarian Media Awards, an event organised by Shield to recognise outstanding reporting on humanitarian issues. The ceremony will be full of journalists and media figures, and Steve heartily looks forward to the time when he can get home and kick off his shiny shoes. At least Natasha is coming with him.

“Tell me again why we spend money on this stuff,” Steve asks her through gritted teeth as they approach the flashy hotel where the ceremony will be staged.

“We have corporate sponsors, you know. It’s not like donor money pays for this.”

“What sponsors?”

“I dunno. A publishing company?”

Steve sneers as if the whole thing stinks unbearably.

“Look,” Natasha continues. “Don’t you think it’s worthwhile to recognise the GOOD coverage we get? There are plenty of journalists out there who want to tell the world what really happens out there.”

“I guess,” concedes Steve.

“Look, when those accurate news pieces and those raw bits of footage get out, that’s why people ever bother to push for change, isn’t it? Someone, somewhere will see that and feel inspired to take some kind of action…”

“SMILE, GUYS!”

Someone takes a picture of the two of them as they go in. Natasha beams radiantly; Steve smiles only because Natasha pinches his bum at the crucial moment. She looks head-turningly beautiful in a deep crimson dress with, Steve notes, perfectly matched lipstick, and her hair is loose.

Steve sighs and tugs at the sleeve of his pinstripe lounge suit, one of two he owns. He refuses to buy a tux for an event like this, or even to rent one, but he has slicked his usually tousled brown hair into reasonable shape. The beard he started out growing for missions had become almost a permanent fixture on his face; it fits nicely with his habit of looking as little like his teenage self as possible. There’s not much he can do, though, about the twinkling blue of his eyes, the disappearing curl of his top lip when he smiles, the Brooklyn twang that finds its way into his voice whenever he’s reminded of Bucky.

They find their way to their table and take in the room. Circular tables are dressed with midnight blue tablecloths, floral centrepieces and flickering candles. Velvet drapes the walls and the guests are strutting about in evening dress, tucking in to generous supplies of champagne and canapes. The sound of their chatter, their laughter, grates a bit in Steve’s ears. He finds it unbelievable that people engaged in helping or describing those in desperate need can also exist in such glamour. He’s not interested in slapping a pretty filter over the underwhelming palettes of real life, even for one night. Natasha, on the other hand, seems completely at home. 

Half an hour later, Steve is backstage waiting to present an award for, wouldn’t you know it, investigative photojournalism. He thinks for a wild moment that the award should be named after Bucky Barnes, but he knows he shouldn’t really talk to people about Bucky, let alone propose awards in his name. 

He steps up to the podium confidently, happy to speak off-the-cuff when he’s sincere about his subject.

“This award is given to the photojournalist who has done the most to serve the public interest this year,” he begins. “A photograph can sometimes tell a story in a way that no amount of words ever can. From Phan Thị Kim Phúc to Alan Kurdi, the right image can cut through political rhetoric and galvanise public opinion. The best photographic reportage leaves us in no doubt as to the heart of the matter.

“Photographers I have worked with in the field have shown huge bravery, compassion and resilience. They are deeply affected by what they see, and want to bear witness for the wider world. Thanks to them, the world cannot hide from the impact of war or natural disaster.”

Steve opens the envelope in his hand.

“For his searing images of the Syria conflict, this year’s photojournalism award goes to Clint Barton.”

Steve’s met Barton before, and he greets the winner with a respectful handshake before stepping back to hear his speech. Natasha was right, he supposes. Work like this is worth celebrating. Like him, Barton looks uncomfortably shoehorned into his suit; both would rather be in grubby jeans, in a dusty camp somewhere, working in their own ways to alleviate suffering.

Steve winds his way back to his table and then, during an interval in proceedings, he ducks out to use the bathroom. While hurrying back down the hallway to the main room, he accidentally shoulder-barges someone coming the other way.

“I’m sorry…” he starts, meets the man’s gaze, and does an embarrassing double take. The blond hair is unusually thick for someone in his 60s, but it’s hardly surprising that a man of such influence and wealth should be well-groomed; Steve has spilt the champagne of an unamused Alexander Pierce.

Why the fuck would he be here?

“That could have been an expensive accident,” frowns the mogul. Usually Steve gets a warm feeling when he hears another American accent, but this one leaves him cold.

“Shit, I…. I’m so sorry, can I… get you another drink?”

Pierce laughs.

“It’s immaterial, really, since I’m paying for this whole affair.”

Steve frowns.

“Goodwin publishing is one of my imprints.”

Steve rattles through confusion, realisation and disgust, and he’s never been good at keeping his feelings off his face.

“I’m Alexander Pierce. I enjoyed your speech, by the way. Mr….”

“Buchanan. I’m Steve Buchanan. I oversee field operations for Shield.”

“Well, it’s excellent work you’re doing, Mr Buchanan. I’m glad to be supporting you this eve…”

“ _Supporting_ us?”

Steve has interrupted and his tone is more incredulous than he intended. Pierce raises his eyebrows but his eyes remain calm, as if he’s used to being challenged.

“You don’t feel… supported, Mr Buchanan?” He sounds neutral, but he has hit Steve’s button dead-on. Steve takes a breath, holds it, narrows his eyes, and decides to walk away.

“No, I don’t feel _supported_ by you, Mr Pierce,” he replies, his mouth refusing to comply with his brain’s instruction. His hands curl into fists. “My job is to distribute emergency aid to people who have lost everything, because a tidal wave hit, or an earthquake, or someone decided to _bomb_ them.” He is beginning to tremble. “When I talk to these people – whose homes have been destroyed, by the way – they often ask me if there’s a place for them where I come from. I meet doctors, I meet engineers, I meet teachers, I meet parents, I meet truck drivers, I meet artists, I meet kids. And I go online to see your news sites describe them as terrorists, freeloaders and ‘bad people’.”

Steve is struggling to keep his tone calm but he’s beginning to sweat. Pierce is holding his gaze, looking both amused and bored.

“So ‘ _supported_ ’ is not a word I would use,” Steve goes on, setting his jaw. And then, because he can’t help himself, “Do you really think those people deserve to be hated?”

Pierce beams widely.

“Well now Steve – may I call you Steve? – The thing is, it doesn’t really matter what I think. I’m more interested in what my audience thinks. They buy the papers, after all. They click the links, bring in the ad revenue. They want to see their views reflected too, quite reasonably, I think.”

Steve shakes his head at the criminality of it all.

“You know, you remind me of a young Nick Fury,” Pierce continues. “I was hoping to catch him tonight. Is he still here? Great meeting you…” he strolls off with an air of nonchalance, although Steve notices he seems to be distracted from heading to the bathroom.

Steve feels sick with rage. He stalks back to his table and Nat’s face falls when she sees him.

“What’s up Steve?”

“I just met Alexander FUCKING Pierce,” he spits.

“Pierce? He’s here in person? What’s he doing here?”

“Sponsoring our event, apparently!”

“Well, yeah,” she shrugs, already aware, “But why would he turn up?”

“Do you think that’s OK, Nat? That one of Pierce’s companies gets to align its name with Shield’s like that?”

Natasha looks at him like an ex-communist who has no time for naiveté, and who has experience of Steve Buchanan’s big mouth.

“What did you say to him?” She asks, slowly.

“I told him that the line his papers take on refugees is bullshit.”

She brings her hands to her face and peeps through her fingers.

“Jesus, Steve,” she groans. “He is NOT an enemy you want to make.”

“Come on, Nat,” challenges Steve. “How many millions eat up that crap his channels spew out? He is, like, insanely powerful. And you know as well as I do, he’s a _bad man_ .”

He delivers this last judgement wide-eyed, like a prim housewife, and Natasha smiles because she does know it. She indicates towards a table close to the stage where Pierce can now be spotted, deep in conversation with a couple of politicians, a retired supermodel and someone who, Steve thinks, could be the owner of a London football club. “So frikkin’ _blatant_ ,” he mutters.

The ceremony resumes and they spend the rest of the evening applauding plucky journalists, film crews, online commentators and press teams, before the curtain falls and it’s time to leave.

A couple of media crews loiter at the back of the room, grabbing notable spokespeople for brief interviews. Steve gives them a wide berth but finds himself intercepted anyway by a young woman with a microphone.

“Steve Buchanan, of Shield International!” She flashes a smile. “Can you give us a few words on the current refugee crisis?”

Steve looks at Natasha, who shakes her head and slices her hand across her throat, but it’s futile; his conversation with Pierce has been bubbling under all evening, and the rage is ready to surge up through him, like molten lava.

“I won’t go on camera,” he says, “But I’ll give you some audio.”

The woman nods, wide eyed, and holds up her mic. Steve takes a breath.

“This crisis is an international embarrassment,” he says, as Natasha buries her face in her hands. 

“The UK government should be ashamed of how few refugees it is willing to take. These are desperate, innocent people, who want to work hard and raise families just like anyone else, and instead of giving them that chance, we leave them to subsist in camps, for _years_.” His voice begins to tremble slightly with emotion. Natasha has hidden behind a pillar, still in earshot.

“ _They don’t have homes to go to_ ,” Steve continues, “Yeah, I know we can’t take everyone, but people who think we should simply close our borders should ask themselves how they can be so cold towards their fellow human beings. Put yourself in their shoes and don’t swallow everything you read, folks.”

The journalist stares at him while bringing the mic back to herself. “Steve Buchanan of Shield, there, with a few choice words for the UK government, and indeed, a swathe of the voting public,” Steve hears as he stalks towards the door.

“Well Steve, anyone who says you don’t know how to party is wrong,” Natasha remarks, drily, pulling her faux fur coat on as they stride through the exit together.

 

**Brooklyn, 2005**

When Steve and Bucky were juniors, someone threw a party.

“Steve, you better be coming with me to Daisy’s party tonight!” Bucky yelled as he barged in through Steve’s front door one Saturday morning. Steve and his mom had shared the two-bedroom apartment in north Brooklyn ever since his dad had passed, when Steve was young, and Bucky lived a couple of blocks away with his mom and sister. They had had keys to each other’s places since seventh grade.

“In here Buck,” Steve called out from the living room couch; his favourite piece of furniture, for reasons he could only half-explain to himself.

“It’s gonna be sweet.” Bucky flung himself down on the couch and grabbed a handful of the nuts Steve was eating. “Her parents are gone. They have an awesome house and all her friends are super fuckin’ hot.”

Steve smiled ruefully.

“Don’t yell at me or anything….” 

Bucky fixed him with a suspicious look.

“Remember I said I might wanna do that… New York Cares thing? The uh…”

“The soup kitchen?” Bucky’s face stayed at it was, reserving judgement for now. He dropped more nuts into his mouth.

“Yeah. Over on Fulton Street. I was gonna…. They’re kinda short for the late shift, as it’s a Saturday night, and…”

“Jesus CHRIST Rogers!” Bucky threw his head over the back of the couch in despair, rolling his eyes. “This is so fuckin’ typical of you! Parties like this do not happen every weekend, ya know? I seriously cannot fuckin’ believe this. Tell me you will at least come by when you finish.”

“I dunno Buck. I won’t get off until, like, 10…”

“That’s when the party will be kicking OFF!”

“And… I’m not sure if it’s really my scene.”

“What the hell, dude? It’s a PARTY. Daisy TOLD me to invite you.”

“Really? Now that I do NOT believe.”

“Well, she invited ME, so….” Bucky shrugged.

Steve’s heart stuttered at the implication that he and Bucky came as a pair. _Bucky_ , with his charming personality and gorgeous face and twinkling warmth and sporting prowess and constant interest from females, chose to ally himself publicly with _Steve_ , who was skinny and gawky and angry and into volunteering and drawing and was still not much good with booze or girls.

“Look, _obviously_ you are awesome for wanting to help people. But you do know it’s also OK to have fun, dontcha?” Bucky admonished.

Steve gave a weak smile.

“OK, I’ll try and swing by.”

“YESSSSSS! I’ll see you there, buddy! OK, I’m gonna go wash a coupla cars for some beer money.”

Bucky clapped him on the shoulder and mooched out the way he had come, with Steve’s eyes trained on his back, because Bucky was a bright flame and Steve a helpless, fluttering moth. 

Later that afternoon, when Steve arrived at the Bed-Stuy soup kitchen, he found an unexpected new volunteer tying on an apron.

“Well, uh, you said you were short…” Bucky looked almost embarrassed, glancing at the floor. Steve’s stomach flipped in surprise. He couldn’t rein in his grin.

So Steve and Bucky served hot meals together to people from Brooklyn who were struggling to get enough to eat. Steve tried to be inconspicuous as he watched his friend, but he felt himself glowing with pride, and affection, to see how the other boy chattered and smiled and charmed the entire queue.

When the shift ended, Steve allowed Bucky to drag him to the party, because although he wasn’t terribly keen to go, it was foolish to pretend he was capable of saying no.

Daisy’s parents owned a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, close to where Bucky and Steve lived, but a world away in terms of luxury. As they rounded the corner of Daisy’s street, Steve began to get cold feet.

“Uh, Buck? I might just head home…”

“WHAT? No! You gotta come. You’re my… wing man!”

“Ha! Something tells me you’ll do fine without my help, pal.”

“Steve? I will NOT have fun without you!”

“You will. I’ll cramp your style. Girls are not all that into my skinny-and-serious thing.”

“Then they’re DUMB!”

Bucky stopped walking and grabbed Steve by the arms.

“Look, if girls can’t appreciate you, that’s a fuckin’ crime. You’re a FEMINIST, for cryin’ out loud. And you’re… not… awful to look at.”

Steve laughed at that and glanced downward, guts twisting. Walking away from Bucky was never easy.

“Any one of ‘em would be lucky to have you. I’m deadly serious here.”

Bucky’s eyes were wide and sincere, his grip tight on Steve’s arms. It made Steve’s breath catch for a moment, before he looked away, feeling foolish.

“OK, OK. Lead the way.”

Bucky grinned, “Attaboy!” then flung an arm around Steve’s shoulders, steering him towards a flight of steps.

They made their way inside, past strings of coloured lights and school friends in various states of drunkenness, and headed to the kitchen, where Gabe and Morita were engaged in aggressive beer pong. Steve had been cultivating a taste for beer in preparation for events like this, so when Bucky tried to get him involved he swiftly capitulated. A half-hour later and he was giggling and hazy, another half hour and he was ranting about the President, although he kept getting thrown off by Bucky making him laugh.

Bucky was glued to Steve’s side when he wasn’t lighting up the room with dazzling displays of beer pong accuracy. Steve kept leaning against him, smiling at Bucky’s conspiratorial nudges, when abruptly his arm went cold. Bucky had been yanked away. 

Steve glanced up to see that a confident blonde called Lorraine, who frankly intimidated the shit out of him, had Bucky by the arm and was hauling him towards the door. Bucky threw a look back over his shoulder and Steve could have sworn he saw panic on his face, but as soon as he met Steve’s eyes he gave him a cheeky wink, and stumbled off after Lorraine.

Steve replied with a surprised thumbs-up and then frowned, rankled by a rogue stab of jealousy. Girls loved Bucky. He turned back to Morita and began talking earnestly about the soup kitchen, while his friend nodded along between swigs of Daisy’s mom’s Kahlua.

A bleary while later, Sharon Carter from Steve’s English class came into the kitchen, wearing a somewhat stricken expression. Steve looked up and gave her a dazed smile, helped her find the cups so she could get some water. 

“Gaaaahd, you’re so _sweet_ , Steve.” She was slurring a little bit. “Some guys are such _dicks_ , you know?”

On that cue, in teetered a big, drunken senior Steve knew as a school football star and stereotypical asshole named Gilmore Hodge. Hodge staggered around all heavy, unpredictable and dangerous, like loose masonry. He careered sideways with a loud crash, then stared angrily at the table he had just wrecked, as if ready to punch it.

Slowly, he raised his head and leered at Sharon.

“There y’are!” he drooled, and stumbled towards her. Sharon blanched.

“Look, sweetheart,” he continued, and Steve was close enough to smell his toxic breath. “You’re actually being a real fuckin’ tease. And you’re… you’re like, _borderline_ hot enough to do that.”

Hodge grabbed Sharon, pawing at her, and she froze, unmistakeably disgusted. Steve felt his skin tighten as righteous adrenaline flooded him. He shoved Hodge backwards using all the strength he could muster in his relatively spindly arms.

“I don’t think she’s interested, Hodge,” he snarled, steely-eyed and aggressive, then caught himself. “…Are you?” He muttered, out of the corner of his mouth.

“No I am not!” declared Sharon, folding her arms.

The assailant looked at them, bug-eyed, and then began to laugh.

“Get the fuck out of here, Rogers. I’m talkin’ to my fuckin’ lady friend here, alright?”

“Ugh! Not your lady friend!” Sharon replied, exasperated. “Give it up, Hodge!”

“Did you _hear that_?” Steve demanded, though he had to look up about two feet to meet Hodge’s gaze.

Hodge just sneered, made a lunge for Steve, grabbed him by the shirt and threw him easily to the floor against the kitchen cupboards. The room span about him after that: Morita and Gabe got involved, Sharon screamed, Hodge swung, glassware shattered, a microwave suffered irreparable damage, a friend of Sharon’s pulled her away and Bucky appeared from nowhere, hovering and radiant like a guardian angel, as if to answer Steve’s unvoiced distress call. 

Bucky grabbed Hodge firmly by the shoulders and hissed loudly in his ear. Whatever he said seemed to drain the rage from the drunken brute, and he slid slowly down onto the kitchen floor, where he looked ready to pass out. Rolling his eyes, Bucky turned to Steve, scooped him up and pushed him through the kitchen door.

Steve was reeling and bruised. 

“I had him!” He insisted. “I was gonna kick that asshole’s fuckin’ ass!”

Bucky sighed. “Steve… were you really gonna kick Gilmore Hodge’s ass? Because as much as we would like to believe that could be true, I think we both know the opposite outcome was a hundred percent more likely.”

Steve looked up resentfully from beneath a furrowed brow.

“He was harassing Sharon. He’s a piece of shit.”

Bucky exhaled and shrugged. “You know what, buddy? Good for you. I just wish you could, maybe, kick them in the balls and run away.”

Steve smirked at that. “I’m not a _girl_ , Bucky.”

Bucky looked pained for a minute. He rubbed his eyes. “You’re also not a musclebound jock!” He pointed out.

“Hey! I’m perfect just as I am!” Steve insisted, echoing his mother’s words. Bucky didn’t say anything, just shook his head, smiled and extended an arm to steer his friend back to the street and home.

“Aw shit… I hope I didn’t… were you with one of Daisy’s friends?”

Bucky stopped walking for a moment to exhale through his nose. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he looked at Steve with a sad smile.

“Don’t worry, I’ll maybe get lucky another time,” he said.

Steve groaned.

“You should know better than to bring me to a party, Buck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd still love to find someone to beta this for me, if anyone is interested.  
> I realise it's probably quite heavy going for some, but I promise there are some hilarious lols in the epilogue! ;)  
> tumblr


	4. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My heartfelt thanks to everyone who clicked the kudos button to let me know you liked this. It make such a massive difference to me <3
> 
> This unwieldy chapter features the return of Brit Sam, plus teenage Steve and Bucky taking some girls on a date to Coney Island (lol).

**London, 2016**

The morning after the media awards, Steve wakes up to the sound of his own voice on the radio, and is feels a lot less ballsy than he had the night before. When he gets to work he receives a summons from Nick Fury, so he reports to the CEO’s office to find Pepper already there, and Fury wearing an expression that is not even remotely amused. His visible eye fixes Steve in a glare which, he has to admit, is pretty intimidating. 

“Nick, I…”

“What the _fuck,_ Buchanan?” spits the CEO, cutting Steve off before he can begin to explain.

“We agreed our new messages _yesterday,_ ” he continues, as Steve squirms. “We agreed you can talk as much as you like about why people leave home, what conditions are like in the camps and so on. You can even talk about what they have to offer our community. But you DON’T criticise government policy, and you DO NOT tell the general public they are terrible people.”

“I stand by what I said,” Steve replies. “It’s what I feel.”

“But you’re not speaking for _yourself_ when you’re speaking for Shield,” Fury yells this time. “There’s a bigger _picture_ here, Buchanan. We work _together_ here. If you can’t play with the team, maybe you shouldn’t be on it.”

Steve rolls his eyes. He knows Fury has a point, has known it all morning, but he’s never been good at backing down.

“Pepper is turning down all interview requests on your behalf, and is responding to distance the organisation from what you said,” Fury continues. “Now, onto your _other_ escapade from last night.”

Steve really isn’t sure what he means.

“I had a talk with Alexander Pierce.”

Steve’s stomach lurches when he realises the full implications of his performance the night before. He hates to compromise his principles, but he has no wish to cause problems for Shield.

“Yes,” Fury nods, responding to the pained look on Steve’s face. “He told me you’d been pretty… critical of his news outlets.”

“Come on, Nick, you know the stuff he publishes is hateful, destructive crap,” Steve asserts.

“Oh I do,” replies Fury. “I know that very well. I also know that I am not going to change anything by confronting and insulting the extremely powerful man who owns the right-wing news.”

Out of nowhere, Steve remembers the day that he and Bucky were caught on the playing fields, skipping class so that Bucky could practice smoking a cigarette. His conviction that the class was not important had swiftly crumbled under the Principal’s rage. But this isn’t like that, not quite.

“I take your point, Nick,” he says at last. “But someone has to say it. Someone has to stick up for the little guy. And maybe I’m someone that people will listen to.”

They eyeball each other for a drawn-out moment, in which Pepper fidgets. Fury exhales.

“I’m asking you not to do this again, Steve,” he says, finally, without really asking.

Steve nods, but doesn’t say I won’t, or yeah, I know you are.

“Well,” says Fury, standing. “You got Pierce’s attention now. If you do fuck up in public, we’re all gonna pay.”

Steve shifts in his seat, taking his cue to leave.

“One more thing, Steve…. Give us a minute, Pepper?”

Pepper swishes out of the room, and Fury’s face softens slightly.

“I just wanted to ask you… is everything OK?” he asks.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“You seem stressed. Wilson’s picked it up, too. It’s been a while since you took a break…”

“I’m fine.” Steve cuts him off, masking his irritation at Sam’s treachery by keeping face and voice calm. “I didn’t go off-message because I’m falling apart. I’m just frustrated.”

“Perhaps you should think about taking some time off.”

“But we’re nearly at hurricane season in the Caribbean, Nick.”

“Yeah, well, it’s always disaster season _somewhere_. You deal with one crisis and there are two more right behind it.”

Steve shrugs, as if to say, well, there’s my point right there.

Nick regards him for a moment. “OK, OK. Just remember, we offer support if you need it.”

“Can I go now?” Steve lets the irritation bubble up for a second, and marches out on Fury’s nod.

*

Pepper has waited for him outside. “Did you watch the Presidential debate last night?” she asks.

Steve did, because apparently he’s not depressed enough already.

“Are you scared that awful man could pull it off?” She asks, bright-eyed with nervous excitement.

“What? No, no…” Steve shakes his head. “It’s a scary thought. But I can’t believe it could actually happen. His own party hates him. I know it seems like he has a lot of support, but ultimately I don’t think enough people will swallow the bigotry. Or, you know, the obvious lies.”

He laughs. “God, can you imagine? What a disaster that would be!”

“Yeah,” agrees Pepper. “I don’t think even Shield has emergency protocols that could cope with a car crash like that!”

*

Steve heads back to his office, brooding. He has felt like this before. Righteous anger, mixing with a sense of unforeseen consequences which can’t now be prevented. Is that… _fear_ , lightening his head and making his limbs feel weak? Whatever it is, it only makes him itch to take action.

Has he always been this hot-headed? This _angry_? Steve knows he genuinely wants to do good, but looking back, he can see a correlation between his impulse to help others and his feelings of rage at his own powerlessness. Maybe that’s why he takes it so far sometimes, risks himself. He’s stronger now, he’s part of a team that can make a real difference, and he doesn’t want to undermine that. If he’s honest, he has very little else outside Shield.

Maybe he _is_ too focused on work, but this is a job worth doing. He loves being in the field more than anything, because in spite of the obstacles he faces, he feels as though he’s doing something, however small, to increase the sum of human happiness. He hasn’t yet met a force that can stop him.

 

**Brooklyn, 2004**

Steve was a good student. He had an unusually retentive memory, which served him well in math and languages, as well as a genuine interest in subjects like history and geography. However, he didn’t always bother to put in much effort when things didn’t come easily to him, so his English grades weren’t the best.

As a result, when he came down with a serious case of pneumonia towards the end of sophomore year, English was the subject that threatened to keep him back.

He spent several weeks away from school, in and out of hospital, but was adamant that his frailty wouldn’t cause him to fall behind his classmates. So Bucky brought him the homework, and even read to him, albeit awkwardly, from Animal Farm.

“There’s no way Snowball comes back with guns and grenades,” said Steve, sleepily, opening one eye.

Bucky laughed. “I thought you were asleep,” he said.

“M’not. I’m just concentrating real hard,” Steve smiled, closing his eye again.

“Look man, I dunno why you’re bothering. You should just watch TV for a few weeks,” argued Bucky for the umpteenth time.

“NO WAY. I’m not beating this thing just to go to fuckin’ summer school,” Steve replied, with a bit too much force, which led to a coughing fit that wouldn’t settle for several minutes. Bucky anxiously passed him some water.

“You’re _sick_ , Steve. You should just, like, rest.”

“YOU’RE sick,” Steve retorted. “What kind of guy reads aloud to his buddy on a Saturday?”

“Oh, you want me to leave?” snapped Bucky, with mild irritation.

“Sorry, man,” said Steve immediately, rolling onto his side. “Don’t go. I just… I can’t even read this damn book, let alone understand it. And I gotta pass.”

So Bucky helped him study, suggesting areas for him to focus on, and Steve made it back into class in time to take his tests. When it came to writing about Animal Farm, he found he knew almost everything that was relevant. Funny how Bucky had been able to point him in exactly the right direction, but Steve didn’t ask about it.

 

**London, 2016**

A couple of hours after his meeting with Fury Steve heads to the training room, where newly-recruited field staff and volunteers are receiving briefings from a succession of specialists. As he enters the back for the room and sidles up next to Natasha, they are hearing from Dr Banner about health and safety procedures.

The doctor finishes his spiel and shuffles off, leaving Steve to stroll up to the head of the class to talk about conduct in the field. As always, he starts by asking the room to explain what they are doing there. A girl in the front row raises her hand immediately, and Steve gives her the nod.

“I just want to help people,” she says, earnestly. “It’s my passion. It’s all I ever wanted to do.”

A skinny boy, who looks about sixteen to Steve, chips in next.

“You know when you see the news, you see what people go through, and you just feel awful? Like, you want to do whatever you can for them?”

Steve nods again, thoughtfully.

“I’ll stop you right there, son,” Steve says, leaning forward on the desk and giving the room his best serious face. Nat grins to herself in the back. “We don’t do this out of pity, or guilt. We do this because it’s the right thing to do. The least we can do. It’s the least people as lucky and powerful as us owe the world.”

The newbies begin to nod enthusiastically as Steve hits his stride.

“Wanting to _help_ is not enough,” he goes on. “Neither is wanting to be a ‘good person’. You help in the wrong way, and you can end up prolonging a war, making things worse, supporting a corrupt government over people in need, preventing people from helping themselves. 

He draws himself upright. “This isn’t a job for heroes,” He says, looking searchingly around the room.

“We’re suppliers and supporters. The people we work with are proud, dignified and resourceful. They may hate the fact that they need outside support, or refuse it altogether. When disaster strikes, we help _them_ to help _themselves_. 

“Compassion is a pre-requisite, sure, but so are dedication, flexibility, and above all, team work. In the field you’ll need to follow procedures at all times. Only when we pull together can we make a real positive impact for those who have lost everything.”

“You need to want to serve. To understand what’s needed, and respond to that. To be humble. To keep learning, never assume you know best. We never go in until we’re called, we never make assumptions about what people need, and we tailor our response to the situation.”

The girl raises her hand again.

“So… how do you know what they need, if it’s not obvious?”

A few muffled giggles are heard around the room, but Steve remains serious.

“We ask,” he replies.

At the end of Steve’s segment the recruits are done for the day, and many of them shake his hand on their way out. Nat greets him with a smile. 

“Promising group,” She notes. “You have a knack for inspiring them, _Kòmandan_ ,” she teases, referring to the nickname given to him by the Haitians.

“I dunno about that.”

“Sure you do. You’re amazingly authoritative for a guy who secretly hates procedures.”

“Yeah, _damn_ those Geneva Conventions,” Steve jokes, knowing full well how bad he is at abiding by laws he _doesn’t_ actually agree with.

“Coming for a drink later?”

“Not tonight, I think I’m getting a cold. Raincheck?”

“You don’t get a medal for abstaining from all fun, you know.” Natasha admonishes.

The jibe stays with Steve, for some reason, and he dwells on it as he takes the tube home. He used to know how to have fun, he thinks. Back in the day. Or was that Bucky?

 

**Brooklyn, 2005**

It turned out that Sharon had a friend at her kickboxing class called Dot, who dyed her hair bright red and wore flower dresses and had a crush on Bucky. This seemed to please Bucky, mainly because it gave him an opportunity to push Steve to call Sharon and ask to hang out one Saturday night.

“C’mon! She obviously likes you after your tough guy routine at the party,” he told Steve. “You gotta give it a shot.”

“Uh, OK, if it means you get to hang out with Dot. She seems nice,” Steve replied. 

“Sure,” shrugged Bucky. “Hey, you think they’ll want to go to Coney Island?”

For years now Steve and Bucky had been making trips to Coney Island. Their love of the place was partly ironic, partly nostalgic; they’d gone there with their moms in younger days, when they were just as skinny as each other; kicked sand all over the crowded beach in high summer as they fell over themselves to get to the sea, begged their moms for quarters to play on the amusements, made themselves sick on ice creams and hot dogs.

These days Steve was more interested in the history of the Brooklyn seaside town and its unique mix of people; immigrants from the Soviet Union alongside faded Americana. Bucky loved the kitschy aesthetic of the place, and the way it changed through the seasons. For the last couple of years they’d been to gawp at the mermaid parade so that Bucky could practice taking action shots.

Steve was in the hallway of his apartment when Bucky hit the buzzer – shave-and-a-haircut – and he pressed the button twice without missing a beat. He opened the front door to find Bucky in close-fitting jeans and a leather-looking jacket that was tight on the arms and short on the sleeves. His ever-present backpack hung nonchalantly from his shoulders.

“Hey, looking good, Barnes,” Steve teased, as the whiff of cologne reached his nostrils.

Bucky laughed. “You look awesome too, pal. Sharon’s gonna love it.”

Steve shifted awkwardly. He didn’t really have fashionable stuff, but he wore his favourite ‘Cassius Clay’ T-shirt and had tried to do something with his hair. He’d finally started to grow upwards, and was nearly as tall as Bucky now, although his slight frame seemed to have stretched out even further.

“Off on your date, boys?” came Sarah Rogers’s voice from the living room.

“Yeah, mom. I’ll have him back by 10,” sang Bucky, and Sarah breezed past to kiss them both on the cheek and smile. Bucky glowed and Steve grimaced, until he noticed she’d slipped an extra 10 dollars into his pocket.

“We’re gonna meet them there,” Bucky said as they sprang down the stairs.

“We’re not picking them up?” Steve wondered, then felt embarrassed by his old-fashioned instincts.

“Nah, dumbass, they have to talk about us on the way over,” Bucky grinned.

On the subway ride, Bucky dug into his backpack.

“Hey, you want a soda?” He asked, offering Steve a diet coke. “I brought a couple.”

“Uh, yeah, thanks.” Steve took the can, grateful for something to focus on. He felt nervous. Sharon was great and everything, and he supposed it was high time he made an effort to go on dates, but he still felt weird about the whole thing.

Dot and Sharon were waiting by the subway stop. They greeted the boys with hugs and Sharon grabbed Steve’s arm straight away and pulled him towards the Boardwalk, leaving Bucky to stroll along behind with Dot. Sharon was warm and friendly, and to Steve’s delight she caught one of his tongue-tied _Robot Chicken_ references instead of rolling her eyes in boredom. 

As he grew more confident chatting to Sharon, he heard Bucky and Dot laughing a few paces behind, which immediately made him feel like he was doing the date wrong.

“Those two are getting on well,” Sharon noted.

“Yeah,” agreed Steve, through slightly gritted teeth. “Bucky gets on well with everyone.”

“I can’t believe he’s actually getting Dot to talk,” Sharon replied. “She’s usually pretty quiet.”

Before Steve could reply, Bucky surged past them and steered them in to the park towards the amusements. The rides and sideshows were lit up in bright neon against the fading slate-blue sky, and Bucky was full of vigour, bouncing on his heels and grinning about him. He loved the start of evening. The strains of ‘Hollaback Girl’ were audible from inside Astroland.

“Oh my God, Bazooka Blast!” He exclaimed at the nearest stall.

“Ugh, I hate these things,” said Dot. “They’re always rigged so you can’t win.”

The carny running the stall heard her, and clucked his tongue.

“Aw c’mon sweetheart, you’re just sayin’ that so ya boyfriend don’t feel bad when he misses!”

He gave a wide, cheeky grin, letting his tongue hang all the way out, then took another pull on his e-cigarette. Bucky folded his arms with amusement. _He knows he’s being played_ , Steve thought, _but he can’t resist_.

Without saying a word, Bucky walked up and handed the man some plastic tokens. The man gave him a slow wink while dropping them into his money belt, and passed over an unwieldy-looking plastic bazooka, attached to the stall by a too-short cable.

Bucky felt the weight of the weapon and frowned, passing it from one hand to the next. The stallholder chuckled and Steve stood back, bizarrely excited by the stand-off, knowing full well that Bucky didn’t play games he couldn’t win.

He raised the gun to his shoulder and squeezed one eye shut, squinting at the crosshair, then pulled up again and looked along the barrel with his naked eye. He smirked at the carny and shook his head. On the other side of the low fence, the man scoffed again. “It’s a nice piece,” he joked. “Decommissioned from Iraq!”

Bucky threw a glance at Steve, his expression perfectly conveying ‘can you believe this fucking guy?’ Steve grinned back. Bucky shouldered the plastic bazooka again.

“Six cans, three shots,” intoned the stallholder, dramatically, in an obvious attempt to throw him off. “Everybody misses the first..”

His sentence was swallowed by the pffft of the air gun and a thud and crash, as all six of Bucky’s cans fell to the floor. The carny frowned, silently. Steve laughed out loud but Bucky wasn’t done; one more shot and the pile of cans to his left was history, then rapidly he swung to the right and demolished the stack on the other side, too.

Casually, with one hand, he dropped the bazooka back into its rack, and grinned at Steve. Behind him Dot and Sharon broke into applause.

“I won’t lie, pal, that doesn’t happen very often,” admitted the stallholder.

Bucky shrugged. “I play video games,” he said. “And I look through viewfinders.”

“Well, congratulations! I guess you can have the grand prize!” the carny announced, his face crinkled again with charm and bluster. He waves a hand upwards, where plushies the size of small children hung suspended from the roof of his stall. Bucky looked incredulous. 

“A little one will do, thanks,” he said.

Bucky proudly presented his prize to Dot: a violently-coloured, flammable-looking stuffed Nemo. Dot fluttered her eyes exaggeratedly and put her hand on her heart.

“For me?” She mock-swooned, grinning broadly underneath it. 

_Lame_ , thought Steve.

“Nice shootin’, Barnes,” drawled Sharon.

“Steve is a dead shot with a Frisbee,” Bucky replied, pointing at his friend. “You should see him play with Mr Santini’s dog. He can hit a tree at 30 feet. In the dark.”

*

The four meandered on through the park, and Steve stepped up to buy a couple of pretzels to share. Then Bucky stopped in his tracks, his eyes shining.

“Come ON!” he said, excitedly. “Let’s ride the Cyclone!”

“No fuckin’ way!” Dot replied in the background, but Bucky didn’t react to that; he was grinning wildly at Steve.

“You’re on your own, man,” Steve kneejerked, out of surprise, more than anything, at the sudden invitation.

“Do you know how _old_ that thing is?” Said Sharon.

“Built to last!” grinned Bucky. He was already wriggling out of his backpack and handing it to Dot, who took it with a smile. “Let’s go, Rogers!”

“YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!” chorused Usher, Lil John and Ludacris in the background.

Steve was about to protest, remind Bucky about his weak stomach, but Bucky’s face lit him up and made him feel like he could do anything. Also, the girls were watching.

It felt like they’d been coming to Coney Island all their lives, and yet Steve and Bucky had never actually got around to riding the Cyclone. Funny, really, since the thing was such an Astroland legend; so momentous it was almost cooler to ignore it. Steve had never suggested riding on it, partly out of some deep and lurching fear that something could go wrong, but then Bucky never had either, so Steve had just assumed he wasn’t interested.

He allowed Bucky to propel him towards the rickety-looking structure. The line was short and within a few minutes they were first, giving them free rein over which seats to take. Obviously Bucky made them sit in the front. The seat was small and they were crushed tightly together under the safety bar.

“You sure about this, sweetheart?” Steve could hear the man in charge of the ride behind him, teasing a nervous girl. “Once the bar is down, you’re mine for three whole minutes! No backing out, alright?”

Steve gulped. Panic and excitement bolted through him, causing him to grip the bar tightly, but Bucky’s side against his kept him grounded.

“Hold on to your fuckin’ hat, Stevie,” Bucky called, as the ride began to move, and now they were actually doing it, Steve wasn’t sure what took them so long.

The car rolled slowly up to the first and highest peak. For a couple of seconds they would have an amazing view of the whole park, and the Boardwalk, and the ocean beyond, but Steve didn’t end up seeing it at all. Just as they neared the top of the ride he glanced at Bucky, who hit him back with a smile of pure joy that covered his whole face and made Steve’s stomach swoop early. When they plummeted over the edge, he was taken completely by surprise and emitted an extremely embarrassing scream of delight.

For the next three minutes the boys laughed and yelled and whooped, and adrenaline coursed through Steve’s body. He felt exhilarated when he staggered off at the end, sick to his stomach but hyped to hell. 

They weaved their way, bumping into each other, over to where the girls stood. Dot slipped her arms around Bucky’s waist and smiled up at him, and Steve was oddly taken aback. His stomach wouldn’t settle.

“Umm, I’m just gonna go to the bathroom…” he mumbled.

“Dude, you OK?” asked Bucky, concerned.

“You gonna throw up?” leered Dot.

Steve hoped his answering scowl wasn’t too petty as he ducked into the small hut nearby.

He splashed some cold water on his face and took some steadying breaths, eyeballing his reflection in the mirror and ordering himself to calm the fuck down. It only took him a couple of minutes until the nausea retreated and he had tucked Bucky’s radiant smile safely back into that well-used corner of his mind.

With a sigh, he headed back out into the park.

*

Dot pulled Bucky away by the hand, back towards the Boardwalk, so Sharon took Steve’s arm and huddled into him. It was only May, and the evening air was still fresh, but the sky was dark and the bustle of the floodlit crowds, the whoops of the joy riders and the exuberant bursts of ‘Hey Ya’ and ‘Golddigger’ made Steve feel like holidays and freedom.

“Hey, tough guy,” Sharon smiled, but her tone was kind and made Steve laugh at himself.

“Me? You’re the kickboxer,” 

Sharon arched an amused eyebrow. “My straight knee thrust is feared across the five boroughs,” she said.

“Uh huh? You think you’ll turn pro next year?” deadpanned Steve.

“Well, that’s what everyone wants,” she shrugged. “I’m holding out so I can finish high school, y’know?”

They laughed, and Steve felt unexpectedly warm towards her. Maybe they’d get to be good friends. They followed Bucky and Dot out of the park and back onto the Boardwalk, where the salty sea air mixed with the delicious scent of frying onions and hot frankfurters.

“Seriously, though…” Sharon began again, “I’ve actually been thinking – I haven’t told many people this – maybe I might wanna be a cop.”

Steve did a double take. “Really?” he said, with more surprise in his voice than he intended.

“I mean, I know it doesn’t sound that cool, but it’s such an important job..”

Steve nodded, earnestly.

“… and, you know, I kinda feel for the criminals, sometimes. I think they could stand to have a bit more compassion on the force.”

“Yeah! Wow, that’s… great, Sharon,” Steve replied, genuinely impressed.

“What about you? You seem like the kind of guy who’s thought about the future.”

“Ha, yeah. I guess,” Steve answered. He realised he was actually a few inches taller than Sharon. Gone were the days when he had to look up to just about everyone. “I think about, y’know, development-type jobs? Maybe try and get into one of the big NGOs?”

“Interesting!” Sharon replied. “You want to travel?”

Steve nodded. “That would be great. Some field missions, maybe, but I can’t really see myself leaving New York permanently.”

“Oh no?” They came to a halt at a quiet spot by some railings.

“Nah. It’s just me and mom, so…. We don’t have any other family. Everyone I care about is…”

His eyes wandered by themselves over Sharon’s shoulder in time to see Dot grab hold of Bucky and kiss him with an enthusiasm that bordered on aggression.

“… here,” he finished.

Sharon heard the slight puzzlement in his voice and turned to follow his sightline. She turned back to Steve and smiled.

“Is that right?” she said, squaring up to him. She was feeding him a line, and the look on her face quieted Steve’s panic about whether he needed to ask permission. Making a snap decision, he turned his face down into her smile and nudged his lips against it.

Sharon kissed back, eagerly, her hand coming up to the back of his neck, and it felt nice; nice to be wanted, like that, to exchange such a sweet feeling. But although Steve closed his eyes, he could only see white fingers in tomato-red hair with black roots, a black dress with icky red flowers all over it. God, Dot was so _boring_. Annoying, even. A feeling surged up though him, and it wasn’t lust or excitement.

Sharon pulled what was probably meant to be a seductive face as she pulled away, and Steve managed a smile, but his head was spinning with confusion. 

“About time,” Sharon said, poking his ribs.

“Huh, yeah,” Steve murmured sheepishly. Behind her, Bucky met his eye and gave him a supportive half-smile. Sharon wrapped an arm around his waist.

“Y’know what,” Steve blurted, “I think I’ll buy us all hot dogs.”

 

**London, 2016**

At lunchtime Sam swings by Steve’s desk in his workout gear to take the piss out of him for his very public rant about treatment of refugees, and drag him out for a run. Steve always has gym clothes with him, since he regularly has to work out his frustration by pounding the pavement.

The two of them dodge dark-suited city workers queuing for lunch and weave through the office blocks, a mixture of tired-looking 80s buildings and shiny new steely constructions designed by competitive architects. They pass through the tech start-up hub of Old Street, referred to humorously by locals as ‘Silicon Roundabout’ and head up past the City Road Basin onto Regent’s Canal. At this time of year the water is dark and brooding, and there are fewer cyclists demanding right of way.

Sam maintains a steady pace while Steve winds him up by overtaking him and doubling back, bragging about his superior fitness. They duck along a cobbled side street adorned with tattered event posters, scrawled graffiti and black hoardings. There’s a slight chill in the air, but Steve just finds it bracing. As they near the office he tugs Sam’s earbud out and earns himself a punch to the arm, after which they walk for a few blocks.

“What were you listening to?”

“Grime.”

Steve snorts. “You’ve just made that up.”

“No I haven’t, mate! It’s been around at least ten years!”

Steve picks up the loose ear bud and has a brief listen.

“That’s just… a horrible version of hip hop.”

“It’s a _London_ sound, bruv, you _get_ me?”

Sam hams up his east end accent, responding with good humour instead of irritation, and Steve is so grateful for his friend’s patience.

“What?” Sam asks.

“I don’t know how, or why, you put up with me sometimes.”

“Believe it or not, I wasn’t always the cool stoic you see before you, my friend. Luckily for you, life has taught me to chill.”

They stroll on in silence for a while, getting their breath back, until Sam speaks up again.

“I talked to Fury about you.”

“Yeah I know you did, you fuckin’ backstabber.”

“Hey, hey!” Sam holds up his hands. “I didn’t mean to, it just kind of came up. I only wanted him to make you take some holiday.”

“And why is that?”

“You just seem tense, mate! We all need time off sometimes.” He seems to notice that Steve has shut down a little, and reacts accordingly. “Fine, fine. I won’t push it.”

They continue in silence for another block before Sam turns to him again with a twinkle in his eye.

“So, things didn’t work out with that Rupert guy?”

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud, Nat!” Steve groans immediately. “Nah, I may have fucked it up a little, but it wasn’t going anywhere.”

“Well, fair play for giving it a whirl.”

“Yeah,” Steve shrugs. “Anyway, why are you single, Mr life coach? All that wisdom and hard muscle? Wasting that sense of humour on a killjoy like me?”

They’re laughing now, but Sam is slightly rueful.

“When I was flying, I didn’t want to put anyone through that, you know? I thought when I got out it would be time to meet someone, but this job isn’t actually much better for keeping a relationship together.”

Steve nods. His team is often out of the country for months at a time, and he’s found it hard to date people who don’t really understand the kind of situations he has to deal with when running a relief operation.

“You could date another aid worker?” he suggests, and Sam rolls his eyes. “I love you, mate, but you’re not really my type. Nah, I think I want my real life to be separate from the job, you know? Anyway, I’m cool. It’ll happen eventually. I have a lot of good mates and a wicked family.”

Steve is silent for a while, which prompts Sam to say “Oh, hey, sorry man, I didn’t mean to… I know you don’t have any family…”

“No, no, It’s OK. It’s just…”

It’s just. Relationships, friends, family, happiness. It all circles back to an ever-present ache at Steve’s core. Suddenly it flares up and breaks free.

“I miss my friend Bucky,” he blurts.

“Uh-huh.” Sam responds, with interest. “Your friend from New York?” Steve nods. “He… still with us?” Sam has to ask.

What can Steve say to that? Yes, no thanks to me? I really fucking hope so? He doesn’t honestly know if Bucky IS alive, or if so, whether he remembers Steve at all.

“I... as far as I know.”

“As far as you KNOW? Steve, this is the only person from home that you ever mention to me by name. I feel like you have to get in touch with this guy.”

He sighs, because Sam is right. Somehow, he does have to contact Bucky. It’s been ten years and he can’t stop thinking about him. Some mornings Bucky’s face pops into his head as soon as he opens his eyes. Photos make him think of Bucky, or even just seeing something worth photographing. He thinks about Bucky when he works out, imagines what Bucky would make of the body he grew. Imagines his friend’s eyes popping. 

He thinks about Bucky when he eats junk food, or drinks beer, or wants to start a fight. He thinks about Bucky when he can’t sleep, or when he can’t concentrate, or when he feels the desperate pull of home. When he’s happy. When he’s sad. When he’s lonely. When he’s with friends. He still knows what Bucky would say, how he would move, even how he would probably feel about stuff.

He thinks of Bucky when he sees couples together. Does Bucky have the love he deserves? He thinks about him as he flips through dating apps, as he reaches down at night to touch himself, and even, if he’s brutally honest, he thinks about Bucky on the sporadic occasions that he’s in bed with someone.

Ten years on, Bucky is still the lens through which Steve sees the world.

It’s not like Steve hasn’t tried. Bucky is nowhere on social media, and James Barnes is such a common name that the internet is no help. After all that’s happened, all this time, there’s no way Steve can just call Bucky’s mom’s old number out of the blue.

*

“Peggy? Have you looked up Bucky lately?”

Her tone changes from conversational to brisk.

“You know I don’t keep tabs on him.”

“Just… could you maybe…”

“No, Steve…. No. I’m sorry. Please don’t ask.”

Steve moves the phone away from his mouth, pinches the bridge of his nose and screws up his eyes, takes a breath to keep the emotion out of his voice.

“Hey, it’s fine. I get it,” he says, finally.

“Is everything else OK with you?” She asks.

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine. Although… I actually managed to fall out with Alexander Pierce recently.”

Peggy laughs despairingly.

“Alexander _Pierce_? For goodness’ sake! You have such a flair for the dramatic, Steven. Mind you, I imagine I’d fall out with him too, if we ever met.”

Steve grins into his phone.

“Y’know, Peggy, you might actually be one of the people who knows me best in the world. Ain’t that a strange thing?”

“Yes… we’re quite the odd couple, you and I,” she answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urgh I have no idea whether my high school sections bear any relation to reality; feel free to correct me on any points.
> 
> Nat calls Steve 'Captain' in Haitian Creole.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading :)


	5. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> High school Steve gets some awful news, but also meets Abraham Erskine, who might have a new opportunity for him. The Shield International team ships out to Haiti following Hurricane Matthew. 
> 
> I have never been to Haiti so please let me know if I've got anything horribly wrong.
> 
> Warning for Sarah Rogers' terminal illness.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Every hit and kudos is precious!

**Brooklyn, 2005**

The summer before senior year, Bucky got a job and Steve’s mom got sick.

Sarah Rogers had been tired, but that wasn’t anything new. She was a nurse who worked night shifts, after all. She was getting more correspondence than usual from the hospital, however, and Steve developed an uncanny feeling around her. It was like standing on a beach watching the tide roll out further than ever before, further and further and further, and Steve could only wait and try to keep his eyes in the sky, as the birds disappeared and a dark shadow gathered on the horizon.

He had kept his head down, made dinner, told himself the two of them would always be a unit. But the day he got home from school and found her waiting at the table, the ground shifted beneath his feet, and he knew he couldn’t look away any longer. 

The cancer was aggressive, advanced. Had Sarah ignored the symptoms too long, insisting she could manage? It didn’t matter now: there was nothing to be done. They both wept as she told him, gentle, matter-of-fact at first before the emotions overflowed, and he held her and shook, but when the telling was over they both dried their eyes, blew their noses, and silently agreed; _no more_. 

Steve had poured her an orange juice, then gone to make dinner, and Sarah had turned on the TV, and they talked about taking a trip, as far as Sarah could manage. Their conversational tone masked their shock.

“If I can make it to next July,” Sarah began, “You’ll be 18. You won’t need a guardian.”

Steve swallowed.

“Just…. I’m sorry Stevie. I’m so sorry to leave you alone.”

Steve looked at her familiar careworn face, taking in her lines and softness, her bright blue eyes and wispy hair, as if he’d never seen them before. She wore a pale pink blouse that day. Her gold chain was visible around her neck with her wedding ring hanging from it, alongside Joe’s; a secret ID carrying her essential information. 

He looked down at his hands. He used to try his dad’s ring on, sometimes, but it was always so loose on him; now that he’d finally started to grow, he wondered absently whether he might actually fit into it some day.

“Look, I’ll get by,” he said, resolute. Sarah narrowed her eyes, and Steve, knowing that she saw through him, gave a smile.

“Bucky,” she said. “You’ll have Bucky.”

*

It took Steve a couple of weeks to tell his best friend the news, but he delivered it with a steady gaze and economical words. He didn’t get tearful, although Bucky did, and he accepted the ensuing hug with some stiffness.

“At least they’re talking months, not weeks,” Steve said, forcing a positive tone.

“Whaddya need?” Bucky asked, softly, rubbing Steve’s back.

“I dunno…. Just… hang out?”

“If you want, you can stay with us,” Bucky replied. “As long as you need. Any time.”

Steve nodded, and the world span on, but its possibilities didn’t seem infinite any more.

*

The day after Sarah was forced to give up her job, Steve picked a fight with a teacher, stormed out of class, punched a dent in his own locker and injured his hand hitting the mirror in the boys’ bathroom. The principal had to send Bucky in to calm him down before they could get him to the nurse, but no-one ever punished him for it.

*

Bucky landed a weekend job at a grocery store in their neighbourhood and he suddenly had some spare cash for himself, after chipping in at home. He and Steve no longer wanted for hot dogs or movie tickets, and Bucky even managed to buy himself a leather jacket which looked so good on him that Steve’s face warmed when he saw it.

The next time they hung out Bucky wasn’t wearing the jacket any more, and he admitted that he’d returned it so he could give a bit more cash to his mom. Winter was always more expensive as you had to think about heating on top of everything else, and Becca needed shoes without holes in that weren’t going to ‘destroy’ her burgeoning style icon status in school.

The weather got colder, and Steve found his wrists poked out for miles beyond the sleeves of his own worn old winter jacket. His long-awaited growth spurt was causing real problems for his wardrobe. He couldn’t bear to ask his ma for money to buy a new one, and he started to wonder whether he was spending too much time volunteering, and not enough on trying to earn some cash himself.

Sarah had insisted that life go on as normally as possible, insisting that now she wasn’t working any more they spent quite enough time together, so Steve had started going to the soup kitchen every Saturday as well as popping in for a couple of hours on a Monday after school. 

He found himself regularly surprised by the sheer range of people who turned up hoping to be fed; exhausted-looking women with babies tied to their chests in colourful cloths, teenage boys who spoke no English, elderly people in heartbreakingly shabby shoes, men with hollow eyes and terrible hygiene, whose age he couldn’t begin to guess at. Some were obviously homeless, others clinging grimly on to a semblance of normal life. 

He got to know the regulars by name. Occasionally someone would share a troubling story with him about their circumstances, but often the guests he served were cheerful, positive, resilient. As far as Steve could tell, pure luck, or lack of it, had an overwhelming part to play.

One Monday evening Steve was taking a break to eat a sandwich he’d brought along, when he was joined by a volunteer he’d never spoken to before. The man was grey-haired, bearded and bespectacled, and he addressed Steve with a kindly smile. When he spoke, his accent was foreign and his voice soft.

“Mind if I sit?” He sounded European. Dignified, but warm.

“Yeah, sure,” waved Steve through a mouthful of ham and cheese.

The man sat.

“I am Abraham Erskine,” he said, offering his hand.

“Steve Rogers,” came the reply, as Steve hastily wiped his hand on his jeans before shaking it.

“I have seen you here. You’re very good with the guests. You are here a lot?”

“Every Saturday and some Mondays, for a few months now,” Steve replied. Inexplicably, he wanted this man to think well of him.

“Hmm,” Erskine went on, producing a bun from his satchel and taking a bite. “I come here once a month. Bad for business to close the café any more than that.”

“You have a café?” Being here always put Steve in the mood for hearing peoples’ stories.

“Yes, yes. In Little Odessa, actually. Brighton Beach.”

Steve knew it from his trips with Bucky down to Coney Island. He nodded.

“You Russian?”

“No, no!” Erskine chuckled. “I am German. The Russians are my customers.” He took another bite of his bun and chewed, eyes twinkling with amusement. “Can you believe it? They were our occupiers in East Germany, and now here I am, selling them coulibiac!”

Steve smiled along. “How’d you end up doin’ that?” he wondered out loud.

“I worked in a Russian café, back in East Berlin,” Erskine said. “I was a boy, like you, and I learned to make their food.” Erskine goes quiet for a moment and Steve looks up at him, encouraging him to continue. Sometimes the volunteers needed to talk, just as much as the guests.

“I was going to be a doctor,” Erskine resumed. “It was my dream. But things were difficult in East Germany. I was a teenager when my mother brought me here. This was the 1960s. Not easy to get out! The wall went up, and we were stuck behind it.”

Steve was listening with rapt attention.

“She managed it somehow. Brought us to this new land of opportunity. Here, to Brooklyn. But it wasn’t easy for her to get work. We struggled for a while. The reason I come to volunteer here now is that my mother and I came to a similar place in 1965, and it helped us to survive.”

Steve nodded in comprehension.

“So, I knew how to make pirozhkis, but not much else. I went down to Little Odessa and found myself a café job.”

Erskine popped the last of his bun into his mouth.

“Been there ever since, huh?” said Steve. Erskine chuckled.

“I never did make it to medical school,” he replied. “But I did buy the café.”

“Sounds like you made it, then.”

“Maybe I did, Steve. Maybe I did.” He chuckled. “But enough about me!” Erskine brought his hands together and gave Steve a broad grin. “What brings a young man like you here on the weekend?”

Steve smiled, and leaned his back against the wall to take in the room.

“It sounds kinda dumb…. I just feel, lucky? Like, I have so much, I’m in a position to offer some help, and if I don’t do it, why would anyone? I mean, I’ve talked to people here. Some of them have had the shittiest time, and, uh… I dunno. It’s not fair.”

He started to speak more animatedly.

“You know Martha over there? She met her husband at 16, and he started beating her when she had her first kid at 18. It took her 13 years to find the strength to leave him, and now that she has, she can barely earn enough money to get the family by.”

He looked around the room, cheeks flushed in anger.

“Rahim? From Iraq? He was a fuckin’ lawyer over there. Now he’s been in limbo for five years because nobody will tell him if he can stay. It’s not FAIR!”

Steve’s clenched fist slammed the table and he looked up immediately, embarrassed by his outburst, but found Erskine smiling at him. 

“You are angry,” the German twinkled.

“Yeah…. yeah, I guess I am kinda angry. Sorry.”

Steve thought about his mother, and how his own life was also about as fair as a natural disaster.

“Don’t be sorry,” Erskine replied. “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.”

They smiled, and the tension was diffused. Erskine seemed wise and steady; calming, like the stillness after the damage is done. Steve spoke up again.

“So yeah, I love volunteering, but actually it’s getting to the point where I need to earn some cash too, so I might not be around so much.”

“You are looking for a job?” asked Erskine.

“Kinda. It’s hard to find something that fits around school, y’know.”

“Ah,” said Erskine. “Well, I happen to know of a café in Little Odessa with shifts available. ”

Steve raised his eyebrows. Erskine passed him a card.

“Give me a call if you’re interested,” he said.

“Thanks. I’ll… I’ll think about it,” Steve replied.

 

**London - Haiti, 2016**

When Steve gets the text alert about Hurricane Matthew approaching Haiti he goes to dial Natasha, only to find she’s already calling.

“We need you to come in,” she says. “Meeting here in an hour. We’re deploying tomorrow.”

Steve doesn’t _need_ to go personally on every mission, but despite the desk pass his senior position affords him, he’d rather be in the field, actually making a difference. He always signs up to every emergency rota and struggles to sit on his hands when others try to run relief operations without him.

Anyway, Natasha knows full well there is no chance of him sitting this one out. Haiti is personal for Steve; he’s been frustrated ever since the earthquake that hadn’t been able to do more.

Within hours of the hurricane making landfall Shield UK has been in touch with counterpart organisations around the world and mobilised people and resources. Steve will be overseeing Shield’s part in the operation, with Natasha as his deputy. Sam, who specialises in emergency health care, will be running a medical tent and co-ordinating volunteer doctors, nurses and supplies.

The paradox of working in disaster relief is that spend all your time working and training and preparing for deployment, but you have to hope you will never actually be needed. At the same time you know that sooner or later a disaster will strike, people will need help; and the wait, the preparation phase, can weigh on you. If you’re a tense kind of person anyway, the drawn-out standby can easily evolve into anxiety.

So Steve actually feels a guilty relief when he gets Natasha’s call, and he’s invigorated as he steps of the plane at Port-au-Prince with his friends, his team, right behind him. The sky is still dark with leftover storm clouds and the atmosphere immediately solemn, but this is where he shines. He’s needed. He can _do_ something.

He’s glad to be back, too, because he loves this island state, maybe more than anywhere else he’s been posted. There is so much colour here, even in the midst of a humanitarian crisis; the smell of the place reminds him of feverish dancing and rum and voudou drums and spaghetti for breakfast. Trekking by himself to the beautiful beaches and waterfalls, gazing over at Cuba from the huge Citadel in the north. 

More than these things, though, Steve is glad of the opportunity to be back among the Haitians he admires so much. As a people they’re resilient, endlessly good-humoured and justifiably proud. They fought off three colonial powers, after all, and became the only nation in the world established after a slave revolt, refusing to accept a social order based on race.

Without really articulating it, even to himself, he’s fascinated and moved by the easy collectivism of society here. In the voudou religion, no-one is ever truly alone; you might just sometimes get temporarily separated from your people, living and dead, but you’ll always have the community. Steve thinks he would like to be part of something like that.

Shield has maintained a steady presence in Haiti since the earthquake, working alongside the UN to provide aid and support Haitians to rebuild their lives and communities. Six years on, however, tens of thousands are still living in camps, and Hurricane Matthew will send thousands more to join them, swamping the existing resources.

Steve, Sam and Natasha are met by Oscalie Gaetan, a Haitian colleague known to them all from the last mission, with a Shield jeep and a matching jacket. _“Byen venu!”_ She cries, embracing them each in turn. _“Sa fe lon temps nou pa we!”_. When she reaches Sam he offers his hand, never having met her, but she grabs him into a big hug too, which he accepts with an air of bashfulness Steve hasn’t seen on him before.

 _“Bon yo wè ou,”_ replies Steve with a grin, making Natasha smile at his recall of Creole.

Her voice turns grim as they climb into the jeep. “We have 400 dead, and rising. Most of Jérémie is completely levelled, and in Sud province we’re looking at 30,000 destroyed homes. Roche-a-Bateau is also _“foutou,”_ Oscalie reports. “Obviously we won’t have the full picture for a few days, but there are going to be hundreds coming into the main camps.

“You know,” she says, catching Steve’s eye in the rear view, her voice thick with emotion, “We had a few days to try and prepare, but the country is on its knees already. Nowhere was safe. We just don’t have the accommodation…”

“Hey.” Steve cuts her off. “You’re doing great. We’ll do everything we can to help.”

 

They arrive at Shield’s main field office at around 2pm, just as the mosquitoes are starting to bite. There’s a semi-permanent HQ in Port-Au-Prince, but Steve wants to check in first with the team which operates from this cluster of repurposed shipping containers, right on the edge of the biggest camp. It has been there since 2010 but has already started to open up to new arrivals from the areas worst affected by the Hurricane.

The office’s front entrance looks out onto rows of tents that were originally meant to be temporary, and the rear windows show the more peaceful view of a dirt track and a thick line of trees. This particular camp was spared the full force of the storm.

“God,” says Natasha. “I can’t believe so little has changed here.”

“We’ve made progress,” insists Steve. “But things are gonna get worse for a while. This time some of the worst-hit places will be hardest to reach. Disease is going to be a defining factor, Sam. I’m talking about cholera, tetanus, waterborne stuff.”

“On it, boss,” nods Sam.

“After this we’ll go check in to the hotel, then we go straight to Jérémie,” Steve declares. His field persona comes easily to him, as always, but increasingly there’s a sense of unreality to it, like he’s trapped in a theme with slight variations. He can almost watch himself, greeting his local colleagues with the solemn camaraderie the situation demands, and confidently setting out the plan for sourcing supplies.

He knows his tactical thinking is sound, but underneath it bubbles an undercurrent of rage like spitting magma. The effort it takes to keep it dormant is almost too great when his Haitian colleagues talk about the latest round of devastation with fear on their faces. _They were already down,_ he thinks. _It’s so unfair_. If I could, his mind spins, I would stand on the beach, and scan the horizon, and when the hurricane came I would open my arms and swallow it down and bury myself, so that no more people would have to suffer. Because if I don’t, when will it end?

 

**Brooklyn, 2006**

Erskine’s café, Glavnaya, was pretty dated, décor-wise, but had a loyal customer base who seemed to like it. Steve, too, had developed an affection for the fake brick effect on the walls and the sponged orange paint, the blue glassware and yellow folded napkins, the over-fancy mini lampshades on the tables, the lace paper doilies, the vase of dried flowers on the front desk that may have been there since the 1960s.

The bar was at the back of the long, narrow room, and above it was a skylight that brought in some natural light during the lunchtime service. By day you could see a patch of sky, the fire escapes and bathroom windows of taller buildings, and a splattered seagull dropping no-one was ever going to clean. At night, you couldn’t see much at all.

His shift was almost over. He threw a bar towel over his shoulder and headed into the back to get a glass of water, and when he came back, Bucky was sitting at the bar. He felt his stomach flutter and his pulse quicken slightly with surprise, purely because he hadn’t expected to see his friend today.

“Hey man!” grinned Bucky. “How’s business?”

Steve couldn’t repress the grin that spread across his face. “Well, the stroganoff is selling well,” he replied in a dreadful approximation of a Russian accent. “Can I interest you in a bowl?”

“Just a coffee, thanks bud,” Bucky replied. And then, out of the corner of his mouth, “Who are _those_ guys? Gangsta as fuck!”

He nodded to a corner table with a conspiratorial expression. Steve knew who he meant. Three of their regulars were sitting there – middle-aged men in shabby suits, with hard faces. Steve mostly steered clear of them as Erskine preferred to wait on them himself, but he had often seen them holding what appeared to be business meetings in the café, and they exuded a fairly uncomfortable vibe. None of the Russian regulars ever greeted them, and Steve thought at least one of them was actually German.

He had asked Erskine about them before, but all he would say was that they were businessmen, and one of them had a hand in one of the New York newspapers.

“Hey man, they pay my wages,” shrugged Steve, bringing Bucky some coffee and a slice of kulich. “How’s the shop?”

“Aw, y’know,” said Bucky. “They buy it, we sell it.” He took a large bite of cake, looking out of the window, and then turned his gaze to Steve.

“And… it paid for THIS!” He reached into his bag and triumphantly produced an extremely cool-looking camera. Steve pulled a suitably impressed face.

“It’s a Canon Digital Rebel!” Bucky crowed. “LIKE ME!” He turned it on and showed Steve how the lens extended automatically, then took a few test shots and turned it around so Steve could see how the images appeared immediately on the LCD screen at the back.

Steve couldn’t help grinning at his friend’s enthusiasm. “That is actually pretty cool,” He conceded, but put his hand up to the lens when Bucky tried to turn it on him.

“It cost over three hundred Bucks,” Bucky said, looking serious. “I felt kinda bad, I mean, I know mom could use the dough, but I need the right gear if I’m gonna have a shot.”

Steve looked up at him, wide-eyed and hopeful, and Bucky’s mouth curled.

“Yeah… I put in my application. To Tisch.”

Steve glowed inside, and, he suspected with some embarrassment, outside too. When he’d nervously told Bucky he didn’t want to leave New York for college, preferring to stay as close to his mom as possible, Bucky had simply nodded and told Steve just how badly he wanted to get onto the photography and imaging degree course at NYU’s art school. He would need a scholarship, obviously – but his art teacher thought he was in with a shot. Steve was going for the international relations major, because, as Bucky was always telling him, he needed to learn how to manage conflict.

They had chatted, of course, about rooming together, or renting some terrible apartment somewhere, but with Sarah Rogers’ future so uncertain, staying home for freshman year seemed like the most realistic option. Neither of them alluded to the strong possibility that Steve would end up living at his place alone, except for one time when Bucky said “Hey, maybe I’ll come live here, huh?” and Steve said “Yeah.”

On his own, looking everywhere but down the barrel of his mother’s illness, Steve focused instead on the idea of living with Bucky. He was frankly beside himself with joy that Bucky was so casually choosing to stay with him. Choosing him. 

Bucky combined masculinity and soft vulnerability in a way that Steve found overwhelmingly appealing. He had the face of a 50s movie star, but could dissolve in a second into childish glee. At 18 his body had grown taut and muscular and his chin sprouted roguish stubble, but his forearms were smooth and pale, his hands elegant.

He’d always been a popular kid, thanks to his beautiful face and easy charm, and this meant he had a knack for getting away with murder. Somehow Steve found his best friend terribly exciting, but simultaneously safe and comforting.

Picturing sharing living space with him had forced Steve to confront some uncomfortable truths. As he played out the first semester in his mind, he found himself conjuring up a freezing New York winter during which they couldn’t afford heating and huddled close together under a blanket for warmth. 

Bucky was relaxed and confident, Steve knew. Bucky was going to be at ease strolling out of the bathroom in a towel. Bucky preferred to sleep in boxers or nothing, and he would be doing so in the next room, every single night. Bucky would inevitably bring girls over, and in all likelihood Steve would be overhearing him, in the act…

Steve had started to get hard somewhere around the bath towel image. Hell, maybe since blankets-on-the-couch. He had nowhere to hide now. Sure, he’d made out with a handful of girls, had an appreciation for physical beauty in either gender, but he’d never actually thought too much about anyone else: Bucky was all he wanted. All he had _ever_ wanted, truth be told, for once.

That night, one trembling hand on his cock and the other clamped between his teeth, he finally abandoned all attempts to pretend otherwise to himself. He had barely dared to imagine Bucky deciding to join him in their poky, unreliable shower when he came with a force that shocked him.

The feeling was strange, at first. He was aware of it rising inside him, up and up, making him expand, and shiver with nervous excitement. A small, impulsive part of him dared to hope that Bucky might someday return the feeling, and a more rational part told him that their friendship could weather a declaration, no matter how Bucky felt.

Steve just wasn’t sure that he wanted to be let down, though, however gently. As long as he kept quiet there was still hope, but if Bucky was never going to want him, well, he wasn’t sure how he could deal with that. After all, Bucky hadn’t shown any particular interest in guys. There was a chance a confession could make things really, _really_ weird between them, maybe spoil their future plans. Perhaps it wasn’t fair to put Bucky in that position.

He had held his revelation close for a few weeks, but looking at Bucky now, all radiant with crumbs at the corner of his upturned mouth, as he chatted merrily, Steve felt his body swell with the volume of his feelings. 

_Say something, then. Tell him._

“What?” asked Bucky, through a mouthful of cake.

Steve felt a zing of panic, and suddenly wanted to cling to the safety of hoping. His impulsiveness had never deserted him before, but… maybe things were too precarious right now, with his mom being so sick. He couldn’t freak Bucky out when he needed him the most.

“Uh…. that’s awesome, man!” Steve blurted. “I put in for NYU too. I hope we hear soon. It would be such a relief to know what I’m doing next year.”

Bucky nodded.

“Yeah. I hope I can get the dough together. If not, I’m just gonna get a job, see if I can build up my portfolio on the side.”

“Your stuff’s really good, Buck. You’re real talented. I think you’ll get there somehow.”

Bucky flushed a little. “You _would_ say that,” he grinned. Then he turned the subject away from himself.

“Hey, sorry I haven’t come over this week. How’s moms doing today?” he asked, meeting his friend’s eyes directly.

Steve was matter-of-fact, practised at not going too far into his feelings.

“She’s cheerful. Starting another round of chemo soon.”

“That’s good, man. Attitude is everything.”

“Well, you know ma – always looking on the bright side. It helps me too.”

“She’s a great lady.”

“She is that.” Steve doesn’t want to talk in any detail, doesn’t want to think about the pain and indignity, the sadness his mother tries to hide from him, or the numb emptiness of a future without her.

“Hey, I’m about done here. Let’s go get the Q.”

Bucky had understood, as he always did, and chatted to Steve about school and girls and music and baseball and movies, all the way up the steps to Brighton Beach station and all the way back to DeKalb Avenue. 

_I’ll tell him next time_ , Steve thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haitian Creole glossary (thanks, google):  
>  _Byen venu_ – Welcome  
>  _Sa fe lon temps nou pa we_ – Long time no see  
>  _Bon yo wè ou_ – Good to see you  
>  _Foutou_ – Fucked 
> 
> I am on tumblr, if anyone is out there!


	6. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is reunited with Bucky Barnes! Do you think it's going to go well?
> 
> Warnings: Sarah Rogers passes away, and we meet a young child badly affected by the hurricane.
> 
> I haven't shown this to anyone who knows anything about Haiti or its people, so please let me know if I've got anything horribly wrong.
> 
> My endless love to all readers and kudos-ers <3  
> (Comments would be a life-affirming joy)

**London, 2008**

A couple of years after he first arrived in London, Steve returned from an awkward date with a girl who was studying politics, and did some drunk dialling.

“Peggy?”

Her familiar voice wound its way into his dim apartment on a split-second delay, as if she was speaking from another reality. 

“Hello, Steve. How are you? Look, I can’t talk for long…”

She always sounded so brisk and forthright, no matter what state Steve was in, and it soothed him. He croaked drily into the phone.

“I love him.”

He heard Peggy inhale sharply.

“Are you drunk? What time is it there? Wait, who?”

Steve slumped in a chair and looked at the ceiling.

“I LOVE him. I love him so fucking much.” 

“Who are you… sorry, I’m just stepping out. Steve, is this about…”

“Bucky. Bucky Bucky Bucky. I _waaanned_ to tell him. Do you know, I was almost jus’ about to tell him?”

There was a silence.

“I know,” she said, finally. “I’m sorry.”

“He’s never gonna know now, is he?” Steve knew he was slurring, despite his attempts to sound normal.

“Listen, Steve, it’s not a good time to talk about this. I think you should go and get a glass of water… are you at home?”

Steve sighed. “Yeah.”

“Good. Go and get some water, and go to bed, and if you want to talk to me tomorrow you can give me a call then.”

“OK, Peggy, yeah.” Steve could see the faint fluffy thread of a cobweb hanging from his light fitting, an ominous shadow on his ceiling shaped like a zeppelin.

“Can you do that?”

“Yeah, OK. Bye Peggy. Sorry. Sorry.” He felt admonished, like a little kid. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

“It’s OK. Talk to you soon.”

“Bye.”

He drank a whole pint of water, as instructed, stripped to his underwear and collapsed into bed. The next morning he couldn’t remember the details of their conversation, but the absence of Bucky was so heavy he could hardly move a muscle.

 

**2016, Haiti**

It’s tough going, this mission. Progress is slow, and it feels like the fight has gone out of the people. Years of struggle for reliable food and water just drain the body and dull the spirit. The dark clouds in the sky clear within days, but the sun glares down on families sitting dejectedly next to their flattened homes. 

Despite knowing better, Steve can’t help the nagging sense of failure. He’s tired, he starts to realise; tired of rushing forward all the time. Nick Fury is due to visit them the following day and the thought of being under scrutiny wears him out.

He has been in Haiti for a week when he sees a ghost in the Port-au-Prince relief camp.

It’s happened before, in the years since he left New York. Glimpses out of the corner of his eye, a double take at a man with a cleft chin, a familiar whisper in a deserted street. This one, though, socks him in the gut.

Just up ahead of him in the middle of the camp stands a man with familiar shoulders, frowning down over a long-lens camera. He’s in a baseball cap and Steve can’t see him at all clearly, but the sight of him makes Steve snap taut, like a fishing line bitten by a marlin after hours or years floating, slack, in the ocean. The man looks up, eyes narrowed against the sun, to revealed a stubbled but unmistakeable jaw.

Bucky.

Bucky? _Here_?

Steve stops breathing and sways where he stands, his body swamped with a surge of adrenaline. His skin breaks out in goosebumps in defiance of the sun’s heat.

But… _Bucky?_

The man had a camera. It’s… _possible_.

He takes a step, starts to run, but out of nowhere a group of giggling kids suddenly swarms around his legs singing “ _Kòmandan Amerik!_ ” He glances down, then up, but now the man is gone.

“ _PITA!_ ” He yells, frantically, and the children look confused. “ _Eskiz mwen, zanmi_ ”, he manages, as he shuffles through them and takes off to the place where the man had stood. “Bucky!” He calls out, desperately, spinning on the spot to gaze in every direction. “BUCKY!”

There’s no sign of him. Steve tries one path, then another, but it’s useless; the camp is haphazard and huge, the possibilities too numerous. He forces himself to pause and think. If Bucky is here as a photographer, if he’s in the camp at all, there must be a record of his visit. The reception centre. Natasha!

He starts running again, attracting a few worried glances from camp residents, and powers all the way to the main tent.

“NAT!” He calls out, dropping his hands to his knees to try and get his breath back. Natasha glances up from her clipboard, unsurprised by his dramatic entrance; she is more than used to his bullshit by now. 

“What’s up, Steve?” she enquires, flatly.

“Did any new media crews arrive today?”

“One,” she replies. “CNN. But we’re expecting a few more.”

“Any photographers?”

“I’m not sure, Steve. I haven’t met any, but I don’t necessarily know all their roles, just their…”

“IS A JAMES BARNES ON YOUR LIST?” Steve interrupts, veering towards hysteria.

“What’s this about?” she asks, scanning the document in front of her. “Doesn’t ring a bell… no, no James Barnes here. It’s possible he hasn’t checked in yet, though. When I get the chance I’ll check for the names we’re expecting.”

Steve does a full-body eye-roll. “When can you do that?”

“Kinda busy here, Steve,” she shoots back. 

Steve stands close behind her and sways from one foot to the other, fidgeting, until the irritation is too much for her. Just as she rounds on him to demand a bit of space, the light overhead flickers and her computer shuts itself down.

“Fucking power’s down, AGAIN,” she groans. “Sorry, you’ll have to wait until I can get back on the computer. What are you so anxious about?”

“I thought I saw an old friend. From back home. He used to want to be a photographer. I’m sure it was him.”

Natasha regards him with a mixture of curiosity and concern.

“James Barnes?”

“I called him Bucky. You know? I think I’ve maybe mentioned him?”

“Uh-huh,” she says, slowly. “Look, I can’t get anything more done until the power’s back. Let’s go get something to eat.”

*

It’s late afternoon when they walk over to the Shield base to dig out some boil-in-the-bag tuna pasta. Natasha heats it up over a gas ring and they walk outside to sit side-by-side on a bench on a grass mound, overlooking the camp. The light is starting to fail and the homeless Haitians below are moving about using Shield-issue pocket torches.

Steve isn’t even hungry, thanks to his state of high agitation, but he accepts the unappetising bowl Nat shoves at him and picks at it. She’s watching him, no doubt waiting to ask about Bucky, but Steve really doesn’t want to tell her anything; it feels like an open wound that needs protecting.

Mercifully, she goes with a different tack. “Did you see Sam today?”

“No,” Steve says. “He holding up OK?”

“Yeah… yeah, he’s not bad, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Well, it’s three years today since Riley.”

“Since Riley… oh! Shit! Really? Oh God, I didn’t realise.” The revelation is enough to temporarily distract Steve from his preoccupation with Bucky.

“It’s OK. He wouldn’t expect you to know.”

Steve feels a sudden stab of something. Sam’s always so cheerful, so good at handling stuff.  
“I suppose… I just feel that, as his manager, I probably should have been aware.”

Natasha looks at him reproachfully, and changes the subject.

“How are you sleeping?”

Steve snorts. He hasn’t slept through the night for a decade, and it’s always worse when he’s on a mission.

“Me either,” she sighs. “This storm feels like a kick in the teeth.”

“You’re making an important difference, Natasha.” Steve turns to her, moving instantly into coach mode, and speaks earnestly. “We got up and running faster than ever, thanks to you. And there’s so much more we can do here.”

“It’s never gonna be enough though, is it?” She answers abruptly, putting down her empty bowl, folding her arms and turning her head to face forwards. 

There’s a silence. Then Steve asks, tentatively, “What about the baby turtles?”

Natasha gives him a small smile. “Yeah. I mean, it’s never gonna be enough for me.”

She meets his eyes again, and looks a little startled; Steve wonders if it’s because she was expecting to see compassion, but instead saw comprehension. He doesn’t know what her life was like before Shield, and it doesn’t matter to him, and anyway, she can’t have fucked up worse than he did.

“I’m not as noble as you, Steve. There’s a lot I feel guilty about,” she elaborates.

“Me too,” he says. “Me too.” 

She frowns a little at that. Steve knows better than to try to dig deeper, because Natasha says what she wants to say, and no more or less.

“Wanna tell me about it?” She asks him.

He shrugs. “I’m a Catholic. Guilt is my middle name. Steven G Buchanan.”

Natasha nods slowly, then deadpans: “Well, when we get back, maybe we should both go into therapy..”

She looks neutrally at him for a few seconds before both of them dissolve into laughter.

“Or confession, at least,” Nat smiles. “I’m semi-serious, though. Don’t burn out, Steve. You’re too important. Shield needs you. And so do they.” She gestures towards the camp.

She pauses for a moment, exhaling loudly. “Look at them,” She says, with a rare note of emotion in her voice. “It’s been so _long_. They’ve got _nothing_.”

They sit in silence looking down at the now-darkened tents, white canvas grubby with six years’ worth of rains. Thousands of people reduced to one wooden box of belongings and whatever furniture they can assemble from scrap, waiting for a chance to build something again.

Then a whirring noise indicates that the local generator has been salvaged, and a string of lights flickers on, illuminating the delighted faces of a group of children. A father hoists his giggling son up onto his shoulders. A woman with intricate braids and a broad back cries “ _Pa gen okenn! Koulye a, mwen pral gen fè yon gade nan mari lèd mwen!_ ,” making her girlfriend cackle.

Steve reaches his arm around Nat’s back and pulls them together, her head falling onto his shoulder.

“Not true,” he says.

 

**Brooklyn, 2006**

Sarah Rogers died on 11 July 2006, a week after Steve turned 18. She had gone into hospital for surgery – a last-ditch attempt at giving her more time – but she had bled too severely and never woke up. People tell him he spoke beautifully at her funeral. Steve has no memory of it, but he does remember that Bucky never left his side, from the hospital’s phone call until the funeral was done. 

Even then, Steve had to really insist that Bucky leave him alone for a couple of hours so he could sit in the darkened living room and retreat into numbness. The doorbell rang but he didn’t answer it. A little later, when he decided to head out to pick up something to eat, he found a bag from Bucky’s store on his front step, filled with essential groceries.

He brought the bag inside and unpacked the items one by one, setting them neatly on the kitchen table. His gaze fell on the orange juice and he spent several minutes thinking over how to go about opening it. His hand reached for it, then hesitated, then reached again, then fell to his side. Then he dropped his head onto his folded arms on the tabletop, and wept.

 

**Haiti, 2016**

Steve’s working late in the field office when he hears a tap on the door.

He’s got nothing done this evening, but spent hours staring blankly at the screen and thinking about Bucky. Thinking in circles, trying to decide if it really could have been him that he saw. Imagining their reunion, panicking about what he would say. What can he possibly say, after all these years? I’m sorry? How are you? My life is still so grey without you? Bucky might not even care to talk to him, and _that_ is a terrifying thought.

The sound snaps him out of the reverie. “Hello? _Alo?_ ” he calls.

No answer. He stands up, stretches his back out and walks over to the door. A squint at the clock on the wall tells him it’s past 11 and things should be pretty quiet outside.

A warm puff of air buffets his face as the door swings open on the darkness, but no-one’s there. At first he thinks he imagined the sound or maybe someone is laughing at him, but when he goes to pull the door closed he sees two eyes level with his knees, peering up at him.

It’s a little child, a boy. Barefoot in shorts and a T-shirt. He can’t be aged more than four or five. Something about his plaintive expression makes Steve’s chest heave with several feelings at once. He sinks slowly into a crouching position and the child regards him with a frown.

“ _Alo. Non mwen se Steve,_ ” he says, gently. The boy frowns back.

“ _Non… non ou?_ ” Steve tries again.

The boy looks down, shyly. “ _Toussaint_ ,” he mumbles back.

“OK. OK, Toussaint. Are you… where’s your… _manman_?” Steve asks.

Toussaint shakes his head furiously. “ _Manman m’ale_ ,” he answers. She’s gone. Steve understands him and feels a wave of panic. “ _Papa?_ ” he asks, afraid to hear the answer. Toussaint shakes his head again.

“ _Ale_.” He says. “ _Siklòn pran yo, yo_.” 

Steve knows enough to understand that. The hurricane.

There’s a base in the camp for unaccompanied minors, a phrase which Steve detests. It’s dispassionate jargon for children who are all alone in the world.

Toussaint taps his lower lip with a pudgy finger. “ _Dlo?_ ” He asks. Water.

Steve’s lived with a broken heart for a long time, and gradually surrounded it with high defensive walls, but occasionally a rogue wave will come out of nowhere and crash painfully over the top, engulfing his open wounds in salt water. He knows he should take this kid to the children’s base immediately, but there’s bottled water right behind him.

“Sure,” he says, smiling as broadly as he can. “C’mon in.”

He stands up and steps back, and Toussaint clambers over the threshold to stand, arms by his sides, in Steve’s brightly-lit office. Steve opens a bottle of water and the boy grabs it with both hands, glugging it down thirstily. Steve’s heart sloshes again.

“Oh, wait, I think I’ve got some…” He rummages around in a drawer and finds a packet of Plumpy’nut. The simple, long-lasting peanut paste is full of nutrients and has revolutionised the treatment of malnutrition in disaster zones in recent years.

Steve sits back on his swivel chair just under the rear window and unscrews the paste, handing it down to the boy. The response he gets is a blank stare. “Oh, wait, lemme…” he mutters, and mimes squeezing the packet into his own mouth, before offering it again.

Toussaint watches him, frowning, and then his face crumples and he looks down at the floor. Steve sees his shoulders begin to tremble, hears a sob which twists his nerve endings with physical pain.

No-one knows better than Steve that no child should really be in his office at this time of night, alone, but Steve also knows that just about any rule can take second place to a blindingly obvious right way to proceed. Kid’s lost his parents to a goddamn hurricane, and Steve Buchanan is not about to let him stand there crying without so much as a goddamn hug. 

He scoops the crying child up onto his lap and folds his arms around him. Toussaint snuggles into his chest immediately but carries on sobbing, and Steve’s nose tingles to warn him that his own tears are about to spill. He swivels the chair back and forth, rocking the boy and patting him, until he quietens down and stares at the wall, listlessly. 

“It’s gonna be OK,” Steve murmurs against Toussaint’s head. “You’ll be OK. You’re gonna… it’s gonna be… it won’t be in vain,” he whispers, in English, wiping away his own tears with the back of his hand. Eventually they both go quiet, and the only sound is the squeak of Steve’s chair.

The power generator chooses this moment to give out again. The lights flicker and Steve’s office is plunged into darkness. Above the spiralling whirr of the broken generator, Steve is sure he hears someone outside exclaim “Aaah, shit!” as if in pain.

The voice doesn’t sound familiar; it’s not Sam, Nat or Oscalie, who are the only English-speakers who could feasibly be nearby tonight. It sounds male, and maybe American. Steve’s frayed nerves spike. He quickly sets Toussaint down on a cushion, gesturing as best he can to stay put, then grabs a torch and bursts out of the door, running around to the back of his container office, where the trees are.

The landscape is washed in inky blue under the moonlight and all is still, except for a shadowy figure scurrying off towards the treeline. Instinctively Steve gives chase. The dirt track just in front of the trees is in complete darkness, and full of potholes, and just as Steve is hitting his stride the figure trips and goes down, hard, a large object flying from his grasp. 

“HEY!” Yells Steve, and a few strides later he’s upon him, grabbing by the shoulders. “Who are you? What are you doing out here?”

The motion wasn’t enough to leave Steve out of breath, but the adrenaline in his system and the hope and fear of who this figure might be leave him gasping.

Steve eases off but keeps an iron grip on the man’s arm. A string of electric lights some distance away in another part of the camp mingles with the moonlight, but they remain partly in shadow.

The man slowly turns to face him, and Steve goes cold in the warm night air. 

His skin looks pale and eerie in the moonlight, but it’s Bucky alright. 

Steve is overwhelmed with a sense of long-lost comfort and relief, like returning home after being lost at sea. He is quickly deflated, though, when he realises the man’s face is contorted in something like fear.

“Bucky?”

The man starts, and Steve realises his own face is in shadow. He sits back on his heels, releases his grip and raises both palms. His heart is thudding like fists to a punchbag. He takes in Bucky’s outline, the longer strands of hair poking out from underneath his cap, the gleam in his wide eye.

“It’s me, Bucky,” he gasps out between rapid breaths. “I… saw you today… I _knew_ it was you…”

The man scrabbles up so he’s leaning back on his elbows, legs scrabbling in front of him. His eyes are round, his familiar face frozen in shock.

There’s a silence, before he speaks in a hushed, terrified voice.

“What the… whatthafuck… _Steve?_ ”

And Steve is paralysed, in mind and body. Everything’s firing off at once and he can’t make sense of it. He feels charged up and crackling, as though he’s been hit by lightning, and he needs to touch Bucky to ground himself.

For the longest time, they gawp at each other, and slowly Steve’s brain comes online. Bucky knows him. _Remembers_ him. What is Bucky _doing_ here?

“What’re you… That’s you?” Bucky speaks first, pointing at Steve’s office. “Steve? Steve _Rogers?_ ”

He’s squinting, unable to reconcile the figure before him with the smaller frame he must remember.

“Yeah, yeah Buck. It’s me.”

Steve feels shaky, and all he wants to do is lunge forward and fling his arms around his old friend. Just hearing his voice is like being wrapped in a warm blanket, although the effect is marred somewhat by Bucky’s obvious distress.

“You’re… you’re gone.” Bucky stammers.

“I’m here. I’m right here.” Steve offers, uselessly.

“You’re… bigger.”

That makes Steve gasp out a laugh that’s almost a sob.

“You’re… the same, Buck. Jesus, you’re just the same.”

They regard each other again, struggling to take each other in. Then Bucky’s face morphs from shocked to stricken.

“Fuck! Oh my God, I didn’t know it was you! They didn’t… tell me your name. I had no idea, I promise!”

He sits up and rubs his eyes.

“I… I have a different name now,” Steve replied, confused. “What do you mean? Who…”

“It’s… my job. Taking pictures. I had to. I.. didn’t know it was _you_. God. I can’t _believe…_ ” Still staring at Steve, he reaches out and fumbles around for his camera.

A sinister comprehension starts to form in Steve’s mind.

“I was watching you. Oh, God. I’m sorry. I was supposed to try and catch you…”

He’s looking over Steve’s shoulder at his office. Steve follows his eyeline and rewinds the past hour, imagines the lights on inside, and sees himself sitting in the window, illuminated from above, comforting a newly-orphaned child on his knee. He feels sick.

“Oh my God,” he says. Then, “Who do you work for?”, already knowing the answer.

“WorldNews,” Bucky replies, miserably.

“Bucky… you know how those pictures could be used, right? How a shitty website could make them look?”

Bucky looks absolutely wretched. He looks down and nods.

“That’s the point, isn’t it?” The penny finally drops, and with it, Steve’s stomach.

“They want to hurt me? Hurt Shield? While we’re out here doing our damndest to _help?_ ”

Steve’s talking to himself now, clenching his fists, but Bucky answers anyway with a pained nod. He looks around, helpless, tears forming in his eyes.

“It’s my _job_ ,” he says again, hoarsely. “I’m… I can’t choose what I do. I don’t want…”

“Buck, what’s going on? What’s happening? Let me help you.”

“You can’t.”

Bucky and scrambles to his feet. He looks down at his camera, then back at Steve.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” he says, and Steve could swear he sees the beginnings of a smile.

It’s so pitiful that Steve is abruptly reminded of the bereaved child, sitting in his darkened office. He needs to get back.

“Come with me, we’ll talk,” Steve pleads.

Bucky glances up, all of a sudden, eyes wide and terrified. 

“Shit, he’s gonna kill me.”

“Who?”

“Pierce. He’ll fucking kill me, if I don’t....”

“Buck, are you talking about _Alexander_ Pierce?” 

“I’m sorry, Steve. I can’t… I gotta go.”

Bucky gives him one more wild look, turns around, and hurries over to the dirt track as fast as he can with a slight limp.

“Wait…” Steve starts, watching him go. He’s tingling all over, a confused mess of emotions.

He wants so desperately to give chase but he can’t leave Toussaint alone any longer, and he senses Bucky needs the space to process their bizarre reunion; honestly, so does Steve. Bucky must be staying somewhere nearby, which means Steve can find him again tomorrow. Just knowing he’s near fills Steve with equal measures of joy and anxiety.

He trudges back into the Shield container with his brain buzzing. BUCKY. After years of imagining how they might meet again, he’d never come up with anything as bleak as this. Bucky’s style had always been easy-going confidence and good-natured smiles, but now he looks cowed, jittery and unhappy.

It all seems so surreal. At this point nothing would surprise him about the depths to which WorldNews would stoop to cause a sensation, but the fact that Bucky had mentioned Pierce himself… that makes things infuriatingly personal.

And what was Bucky doing working for WorldNews? He’d seemed so miserable about it, and Steve could see why. Bucky was talented. Pap jobs really weren’t his style. If Alexander Pierce had anything to do with Bucky’s sorry state, well... Steve would give him no quarter.

When he opens the door to his office he can see Toussaint is heavy-lidded, almost asleep. He grabs a Shield blanket, lies down on the cushion, tucks the blanket around them both, and watches the sky slowly change colour until morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kreyòl glossary (the bits that aren’t obvious / translated in the text):
> 
>  _Kòmandan Amerik_ – Captain America (obvs)  
>  _PITA! Eskiz mwen, zanmi_ – LATER! Excuse me, friends  
>  _Pa gen okenn! Koulye a, mwen pral gen fè yon gade nan mari lèd mwen!_ – No! Now I will have to look at my ugly husband!  
>  _Alo. Non mwen se Steve, Non… non ou?_ – Hello. My name is Steve. Your name?  
>  _Siklòn pran yo, yo_ – The hurricane took them
> 
>  
> 
> Love to chat on tumblr


	7. The Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve reaches crisis point.

**Haiti, 2016**

Steve doesn’t feel as though he has slept at all, but when he slides into consciousness at dawn, he feels a creeping sense of dread and foreboding. His thoughts are running up and down endless staircases, and his lungs just won’t fill. Little Toussaint is still sleeping, wrapped in a blanket, and Bucky is out there. Bucky is trying to set him up, and Bucky is unhappy. Maybe even _unsafe._

Steve is way out of his depth. The excitement of seeing his best friend again has crashed, and his carefully-constructed barriers, erected to stop him feeling too much, are teetering dangerously. He looks again at the child.

“Pull yourself together. People need you,” he murmurs, out loud.

He fixes his gaze at a poster about hygiene on the opposite wall and forces himself to breathe in through his nose, hold it for a beat, and exhale through his mouth. Gradually the pins and needles in his hands subside.

Toussaint stirs, and Steve carries him straight to the children’s base, handing him off to the team there who welcome the boy with hugs and soft words. He almost wants to vomit as he waves goodbye and it takes all his mental strength to bring those shutters back down. _Don’t form personal attachments,_ he recites, as he heads back to the office. He means to head straight to the onsite shower block but instead he sinks down into his chair and buries his face in his hands.

There is a lot of work he needs to get through today to ensure the right supplies reach the right people, but he can’t begin to think about that while Bucky is somewhere nearby. Bucky. Bucky in distress, possibly needing help. Bucky with a camera full of photos which could be twisted by the wrong hands into a troubling reputational risk for Shield International.

His phone beeps on the desk in front of him. He looks up and there, right in his sightline, so obvious he can’t believe he overlooked it before, is a black, long-lens camera.

He gazes stupidly at it for a while, trying to wrap his mind around it. Bucky had taken his camera with him last night, hadn’t he? The answer comes to him eventually, and makes his breath turn shallow again; _Bucky came back. Steve must have been dozing, and he must have snuck in and left the camera._ His skin throbs as he tries to understand what Bucky was thinking.

He picks the camera up and hesitantly drapes the strap around his neck, shuddering at the way it rests against the skin of his neck. Blurrily familiar, like a thought that could be a faint memory or a picture he once saw. He turns it on, and works out how to bring up the images on the screen.

Sure enough, there’s a string of shots taken through his window the night before. Steve sees himself cuddling a frightened Haitian boy in his lap and seethes with anger at the idea of these pictures being used to frame him as a possible abuser. _But they won’t,_ he realises. _I’ve got them now. Bucky left them for me._

A strange feeling settles in the pit of his stomach. He’s relieved that one potential crisis has been averted, but also elated that Bucky, having presumably cleared his head, must have left the camera so that Steve would know he wasn’t going to be mauled on a WorldNews scandal site.

He scrolls on through the images and is a bit unsettled to find there are others of him on there, too; some of him and Natasha on the bench, and a few others of him going about his business. None of them show him very clearly and he can see how Bucky wouldn’t recognise him, especially as he certainly wouldn’t have been expecting him.

He keeps pressing the arrow button and finds that as well as following him, Bucky has been busy recording the relief effort itself, as well as life in the camps. He’s entranced, but not surprised, to see that Bucky is good. He must still have a way with people because he’s managed to convince so many to engage with him; families huddled together in front of ruined homes, looking defiant, or determined, or broken. Heart-rending compositions showing humble possessions, muddied and drenched, and scattered on the mud. Graffiti scrawled on walls saying “WE NEED TINTS + FOOD + WATER. Please help us. God bless.” 

But he’d captured something else, too: the gleeful, resilient spirit of the Haitians which Steve had found so inspiring on his first visit. Women braiding each other’s hair on stools outside their tents. A child helping a peacekeeping soldier organise a table full of shoes. Kids happily improvising games with empty water bottles. People painting colourful murals on the walls of the latrine blocks.

For a few minutes the stress and anxiety melt away, and Steve feels nothing but the fierce glow of pride in his friend’s talent. Then voices at the door snap him back to reality and he’s on edge once again.

“Morning,” greets Natasha, and double takes when she sees him. “What’s happened to _you?_ ”

Sam comes in behind her whistling the brass riff to the Specials’ _Rudy, a Message to You._ “Alright, boss?” He clocks Steve’s obvious exhaustion. “Rough night?”

Steve rubs his eyes and debates keeping the events to himself, before thinking better of it.

“It was a very… strange evening.”

Natasha fires up the gas ring to boil water for coffee. “Do tell,” she says, with interest.

“I was in here until late, and I found this little kid wandering around.”

Nat glowers. 

“So… you took them straight to the children’s tent, right?”

Steve looks sheepish. She lifts her face and hands to heaven, wordlessly asking for strength to deal with this development.

“STEVE.”

“He was thirsty.” Steve snaps, defensive. “I didn’t know if anyone would be awake. I just wanted to give him something to eat and drink.”

Natasha rolls her eyes.

“Anyway, the power went out, and I heard something outside, so I ran out, and… I caught a photographer taking pictures of me through the window.”

“WHAT?” Nat rounds on him.

“Pictures of you and the kid, you mean?” Sam says, giving him an incredulous stare.

“Yeah,” Steve confesses. “Yeah, I had him, kinda…. In my lap.”

Both of them stare at him, incredulous. Sam folds his arms and shakes his head. “’Ave a word with yourself, Steven,” he reprimands.

“GUYS. He was a LITTLE KID. Sad and alone. What the fuck was I going to do? Come on!”

“Look, I’m not trying to piss on your chips, mate, but you just told us how someone took PICTURES of you. Jesus, do you WANT to be the star of another abuse scandal?” Sam’s eyes are wide, his expression deadly serious.

“No Sam, and that’s not gonna happen because I wasn’t abusing him! Anyway.”

Steve pauses for breath.

“But some people only need the barest excuse to mistrust us…” Sam starts.

“The POINT is, it’s also not going to happen because I caught the photographer, and I have his camera,” Steve interjects.

“You WHAT?”

“And there’s more.” Steve hesitates, feeling vulnerable under the twin glares of his team-mates. This is the part he’s reluctant to share, either because it makes him vulnerable, or makes him look crazy. He takes a deep breath.

“…It was Bucky,” he says, instantly aware of how insane he sounds.

Sam and Natasha regard him silently for a minute, looking more concerned than angry.

“Oh, now I KNOW you’ve gone mental,” groans Sam.

“Bucky? James Barnes? The guy from Brooklyn?” Says Nat. “Are you sure?” She exchanges a glance with Sam. “You thought you saw him in the camp, right?”

“I talked to him, Nat. He knew me. It was him.” Steve’s voice comes out more assured, as if he’s gaining confidence.

“That sounds…. Very strange. Why would he be here?”

“He works for WorldNews,” Steve explains. “He’s on a job. But it turns out that… part of the job was to… spy on me.”

Natasha shakes her head in disbelief. “Fucking Alexander Pierce!” She says. “I told you not to piss him off, Steve. This is unbelievable. You do know that Nick is coming out here tonight?”

“Shit!” Steve had completely forgotten that the CEO was due to make a field visit that day.

“So you’re trying to tell me,” intervenes Sam, “That Pierce _himself_ had your long lost best pal come here to try and set up incriminating pictures of you, to exact petty revenge for your low opinion of his news channels?”

Steve considers this for a minute, then shakes his head. 

“Nah, I think it’s about me spilling his drink.”

Steve remains straight-faced, but Sam’s attempt to disguise his laughter as a cough earns him a glare from Natasha.

“It does seem too weird, don’t it?” continues Steve. “I mean, there’s no way Pierce can know about me and Bucky. I can’t believe I upset him that much!” He can actually feel a smile encroaching onto his face. Alexander Pierce seems ridiculous, suddenly; a small and laughable man, dwarfed by Steve’s feelings about Bucky Barnes.

“Got to be more to it,” Natasha is muttering, and pacing up and down. “Maybe it’s got something to do with his thing with Fury. Hey, maybe it’s not you, so much as _Shield_ he’s after…” She looks up and notices Steve’s amused expression.

“Pierce isn’t a _joke_ , Steve!” she snaps. 

“No! No, I know,” Steve grins. “No, I’m not… Look, I don’t even care about him. Fuck him.”

His eyes travel over to Sam, whose concerned expression melts into an answering grin.

“Bucky, eh?” Sam says.

Steve beams up at the ceiling and spins his chair around like a boy at a funfair.

*

Even a drama as spectacular as the appearance of Bucky Barnes can’t be allowed to hold up the relief effort for long, so Sam heads over to the medical centre while Steve and Natasha meet up with Oscalie to plan the day’s logistics. The storm has seriously impacted the usual supply routes so they are having to get creative and work even more closely with other agencies, adding a layer of complication to their task. Natasha excels at working out tricky situations, but even she is feeling a bit stressed by the middle of the morning.

While she and Oscalie make calls and pore over maps, Steve taps his fingers on the table, fiddles with his phone, walks outside and comes back in again. Eventually he drives Natasha so crazy that she gives in and checks her database to find details of news crews registered to visit Shield-run camps that week.

“Here we go,” she says Natasha. “James Barnes, photographer, WorldNews. He’s here with a reporter and a cameraman. They’re at the Oloffson in Port-au-Prince.”

Steve is already looking up the hotel’s number.

“Hey,” she says gently, touching his arm. “Be careful. It’s gonna be weird after all this time. And the situation might be delicate.”

Steve tries to heed her advice, but he can’t think of anything beyond finding his way to Bucky. He wonders if his grip on sanity is finally starting to loosen. Some time after midday the team decides to take a break, and Steve races back to his container to call the Hotel Olofsson, dialling the number with clammy hands.

“Hello? Yes, uh… This is Steve Buchanan of SHIELD International. I’d like to speak to my friend James Barnes, one of your guests? Please?”

“Yes sir, one moment please,” comes the reply, and then a muttered “ _Dans quelle pièce se trouve James Barnes? Oui? Douze? Merci,_ ” and then “ _Sais-tu s’il est là? Oui? Un moment_ … Excuse me, sir, I’ll try for you.”

A kind of panic stabs at Steve’s chest as the phone rings. He hasn’t spared a single thought for what he might say to Bucky. Minutes later, the phone has gone unanswered, and Steve feels a fresh kind of anxiety. The staff had thought he was there. Why wouldn’t he answer?

Steve thinks about the look of fear on Bucky’s face when he talked about incurring the wrath of Alexander Pierce. 

He jogs back to the Shield office and grabs a set of keys from his desk.

“I’m taking the jeep,” he explains, over his shoulder, and half- hears Natasha warn “Steve…” before she’s cut off as the door swings closed. 

He runs over to the Shield-branded jeep and takes off along the stone-strewn track that leads out of the camp towards the capital. The roads are full of potholes, which is the only reason he’s forced to keep to a legal speed as he weaves in and out of the cars and motorbikes. The sun is bright, glaring off the whitewashed stone of the buildings and chalky-grey road surface, and palm trees against blue sky remind Steve that by rights, Haiti should be an island paradise.

His hands slip at the wheel as his mind races ahead. _Is Bucky OK? If Alexander Pierce is doing something to hurt him, Steve will gladly track him down and do whatever it takes to stop him. Maybe then Bucky will… Buck will…_

A group of men are sitting around chatting with their motorbikes just outside Bucky’s hotel, and Steve waits impatiently, one hand hovering over the horn, for a gaggle of yellow and blue-uniformed schoolgirls in ankle socks to pass before he can turn into the driveway. The building is colonial and gothic-looking, with ornately carved wood fretwork covering its towers and balconies. It’s set in pretty gardens, with voudou sculptures and towering palms.

Steve doesn’t pause to take it in, though. He dashes up the steps and strides through the lobby wearing a big smile, offering a confident “ _Je suis avec SHIELD? Je visite mon ami?_ ” to the decidedly relaxed reception staff, and finds his way up the stairs to room 12.

His heart is thumping fit to burst as he turns down the hallway, and his arms and legs feel weak. Room 12 is at the far end of the hall and Steve reels with dizziness and distance, as if he’s looking down a telescope the wrong way, or standing in the dark unnoticed, staring in through a window. He takes a deep breath and presses on.

Feeling tightly wound as a coiled spring, Steve lifts his hand to knock on Bucky’s door, and the back of his mind tells him that in Brooklyn, he would have had a key. He’d have opened the door and mooched right in, gone to find Bucky in his room, or on the couch, felt the comfort and safety of home. This situation feels opposite, like Steve needs to kick down the door and carry Bucky away from some imprecise menace. He knocks.

There’s no answer, but when Steve presses his ear to the door, he thinks he hears the soft creak of a bedspring. He knocks again.

“Bucky?” He calls out, in a register slightly more desperate than planned. “Bucky? Are you there? It’s me.” He’s trying to sound calm but his chest is tight, his voice running away, his knocking is a little too hard and insistent. “Bucky? Please?” 

After an agonizing minute the door cracks open, revealing an inch-wide sliver of Bucky Barnes.

Steve gasps softly, flustered at seeing Bucky in daylight; even if only a fraction of him. Flip flops. Grey cargo shorts. An old, dark T-shirt. One startled eye, red-rimmed and dark-circled, that slices Steve open from his stomach to his chest, and dark strands of hair falling across his pale, unshaven face. Steve is caught between elation and heartbreak at the sight of him.

“Shut up!” Bucky hisses through the gap. “What do you want?”

The smile that erupted on Steve’s face falls away just as quickly as it came and he takes a step back, realising he hadn’t even tried to imagine how this encounter could go.

“Can we talk?” he asks, in a low voice to mirror his friend’s.

“Why? You have the damn pictures. I don’t have copies,” Bucky whispers.

“You… huh?” 

“I can’t talk to you. You have to get out of here, now. Rollins is next door.”

“But Bucky, I just… please! I have to talk to you! I don’t CARE that you took those pictures, I didn’t come here to fight with you…”

“You could get me in a lot of trouble, Steve.” Bucky’s voice trembles. “Would you please leave me the fuck alone?”

With that, the door closes in Steve’s face.

Steve staggers back one step but it feels like he’s fallen head over heels. His mind flashes with the image of a sliding door closing, flights of stairs stretching away at odd angles, like an Escher drawing.

He raises his hand to try and knock again, but he stops himself. Instead he whispers at the door.

“You know where I am. I’ll put my cell number under the door. Please, I… I’ve missed you, Bucky.”

Silence.

“A lot. Uh, I’ve missed you a lot.”

Nothing.

“Please call me.”

He pulls out a business card, which is awful and officious, but he didn’t bring a pen. He slides it under Bucky’s door. Then he straightens up and stares at the number 12 in numb confusion. He _knows_ there are situations he can’t fix, he just… he hasn’t met one before. Never not even been allowed to _try_.

Slowly, he places his palm against the wood and inclines his forehead to rest alongside it, breathing in and out, in and out.

Then he forces himself to turn and walk away, back along the hall away from Bucky, and it’s like walking through mud. He descends the hotel stairs feeling heat and darkness, and guilt sitting heavy in the pit of his stomach.

*

He trudges out front to the jeep, sits in the driver’s seat and stares up at the hotel for a long time, unable to come up with a single idea about what to do next. For ten years he’s been itching to find a way back to Bucky. Over those years he’s imagined so many scenarios, many of which involve Bucky suffering somehow, after what happened, and Steve helping him recover, but he has never once pictured Bucky sending him away. It feels completely _wrong_. How can he make things right, if Bucky won’t let him?

He stares up at the hotel’s beautiful exterior and feels Bucky behind it, struggling alone. _Who was Rollins? The WorldNews reporter? Maybe he knew Bucky was meant to be following Steve. Yes. It would be easier for Bucky if his colleagues didn’t find out they knew each other. Bucky would call._ His breathing starts to settle but he doesn’t feel calm, just helpless, useless.

His phone rings in his pocket and he pulls it out to check it. Sam Wilson. He lets it ring until it stops, and checks the display: six missed calls from Sam, two from Natasha. Voicemail, which he hates with a passion.

The phone rings again, and his stomach lurches. This time he steadies himself and answers.

“Hi, Sam.”

“Where are you? You’ve got to get back. Something’s come up.”

“I’m in Port-au-Prince. I can be back in half an hour.”

“Good. Do that.”

“OK.”

“Fury’s just arrived.”

Steve groans. “Alright, alright. Try and make him happy, will you?”

Sam chuckles. “I’ll do my best, boss. See you soon.” 

Sam hangs up. This is the kind of situation where Steve usually thrives, but the adrenaline that floods him this time feels more like fear than determination. He’s tired. Not sure he’s got it in him to face another crisis. He rests his head on the wheel for a while, breathing, before sitting up straight and turning the keys.

He drives back to the Shield field office, and even from outside the door he can sense trouble, excited voices all talking at once. Oscalie is in there, with two other Haitian colleagues, and Nick Fury is looking serious.

“Steve! Thank God. We’ve hit a major snag with the supply routes. We’re running very short.” Natasha’s usual calm seems stretched to its limits.

“There’s something else, as well,” Oscalie begins, coming over to show Steve her phone. He stares dumbly without really seeing it.

“There’s a fake news story in the US,” she says. “Telling people not to donate to Shield because we’re ‘sneaking Haitian refugees into the country’. We need to answer this one right now, without directly accusing the presidential campaign. Can you do media interviews this afternoon?”

“I don’t go on camera,” Steve says, weakly.

“You might have to, this time.”

“I CAN’T,” he snaps back.

Oscalie and Natasha look at each other and there’s an awkward silence.

“You do it, Oscalie,” Steve mutters. She stares at him, wide-eyed.

“But this is… white people bullshit,” she replies.

“S’why we need you. Go on, you’ll handle it. You’re brilliant.”

Oscalie draws herself up and nods. “OK then. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do it.”

As she goes for her phone there’s a knock on the door. It bursts open and a junior colleague from Shield Haiti enters in a state of panic.

“The maternity hospital’s collapsed!” He blurts, pointing frantically behind him. “In Petionville. They thought it was stable, but the storm…”

“SHIT,” says Natasha. Everyone looks at Steve, but he just looks between their faces in shock.  
He sits down, hard, feeling light-headed and distant. _That’s it,_ he thinks. _I give up. There’s nothing I can do about any of this. And even worse, I don’t even care, because they only thing I DO care about is also fucked._

There’s a long silence while everybody in the room looks to him for a response, but his mind is blank and his throat is dry. He gapes back at them idiotically.

Nick Fury takes control.

“Melinda’s in the Petionville camp,” he says. “Sam, you call her, establish what medical support we can offer. Oscalie, assemble a team to get over there and help move rubble.”

“Gotcha,” says Sam, reaching for his phone. “On my way,” says Oscalie.

Voices carry on around him but Steve doesn’t hear them. He stares at the wall, thinking that he cares a lot about Sam and Nat, which probably means they’re going to be ripped away from him any minute now. 

Then his thoughts twist around to little Toussaint, who was much too young to lose his mom and dad, and to endure a catastrophe without them. The thought brings him visceral pain.

He jumps out of his skin when two hands bang on his desk and has to fight the urge to vomit.

“What pictures?” Fury is demanding, his face living up to his name. “Do we have another reputational risk here, Buchanan, on top of all this other shit?”

Steve looks up numbly. Fury’s words take several seconds to reach his ears, and the whole scene has taken on a sense of unreality. All his muscles feel weak. He’s sweating and his head feels much too heavy for his neck; it’s as though he’s looking down on the room from above, watching the crisis unfold but unable to intervene.

Fury is living up to his name. “PLEASE tell me I don’t have to tell Pepper to brace for a PR crisis…”

“NO, NICK. I HAVE THE FUCKING PICTURES.”

“You have… will someone tell me about these damn pictures?”

“Nick…” starts Nat, her voice sharp, warning.

“Bucky took them.” Says Steve, quietly, doing his best to control his voice. Three pairs of eyes fix on him, and dimly he’s aware that they are all wide with concern. “Yeah, my friend, Bucky. He… he’s here. He wouldn’t see me. He’s at the… I think he’s… he’s in some kind of trouble.”

“What’s going on?” Fury presses, taking a step towards him.

“He said… Bucky said he’d be in trouble with Alexander Pierce,” Steve says faintly. There’s so little breath in his lungs he can barely force words out. Then Fury is right next to him.

“Buchanan,” he hears, Fury’s words bouncing off the walls and around his ears, “Are you OK?”

*

Steve’s memory of the trip back to Fury’s hotel is vague, but enough to make him wince every time he recalls it. He remembers Natasha’s hand on his back, rubbing slow circles, as he heaved and shook with snotty sobs in the back of the jeep. He remembers Sam’s voice, saying “Look, mate, we’ll sort this out. We’re all gonna help.” And he clearly remembers the suffocating weight of his conviction that nothing was going to be alright ever again.

*

Steve comes to slowly. First he’s aware of the warm breeze of a ceiling fan on his cheek, and the crinkle of a stiff sheet against his upper arm. The pillow is damp and slightly gross against the corner of his dry mouth. As soon as he remembers who he is, his guts flood with cloying nausea once again.  
He opens his eyes to find the room is dim, but he’s looking at the knees of Sam Wilson, who’s sitting in a chair next to the bed.

“Hey, hey, Steve,” says Sam, gently. “He’s awake.”

Steve sits up, feeling spaced out and sticky. Scowling, he reaches for a glass of water, and makes himself sit up. Natasha is sitting at the foot of the bed.

“Hey,” she says, smiling kindly. “You only slept for a couple of hours. Sleep some more, if you want.”  
“No, no,” Steve replies, hoarsely. “What… I have to get back. I have to deal with the supply issues. The… FUCK! Nat! The hospital!”

“STEVE. No. It’s OK. We’ve been managing things from here. Phil and Melinda arrive tomorrow, they will pick up from you. You’re done.”

“But…”

“You’re DONE,” She insists. “You need a break. You are not indispensable to SHIELD, Captain.”  
Steve looks wounded, but allows himself to mimic her smile.

“Look, you’re good. The best. But you’re not the only one who can handle things. So you’re gonna pass on the mantle for a while. Sam and I are gonna work with Coulson’s team, and if you need our help, we’ll be here for you. And that’s all you have to worry about.”

Steve exhales, and for once there’s not a glimmer of fight in him. 

“You should probably get home and rest as soon as possible,” Fury’s voice came from a dark corner.

“Nick?”

“This is my damn hotel room.”

Steve actually manages a smile.

“Well can we order some room service, chief? I think I might wanna… tell you guys something.”

*

The hotel’s goat stew smells life-giving but in the end Steve can’t stomach it, so the others eat while he drinks water. He feels giddy, reckless; like his life’s worth nothing unless he can get Bucky back, like he hasn’t got the energy to hide any more. 

A big decision solidifies in his head, and takes root.

He takes a breath and looks around at his colleagues, his friends.

“OK guys, this is gonna be kind of heavy. I mean, it’s a lot.”

Nick, Natasha and Sam immediately give him their full attention, and he hesitates.

“It’s like… it’s not _illegal_ for me to say this, but it’s definitely inadvisable.”

“Don’t feel you have to talk to us,” Natasha says, gently.

“No, no. I want to.” Steve answers, his resolution coming through in his voice. His fingers tighten around his water bottle. “I want you to listen.

“So,” he begins. “ _God_ , this is weird.” He glances around each of his friends. “Anyway. I don’t know if you… Ten years ago, okay, the NYPD police commissioner was murdered.” 

His voice shakes a little. They nod, a bit thrown by the relevance of the old news story.

“Jasper Sitwell. Of course,” says Fury “I was in New York at the time. Huge drama.”

“It was the Russian mob,” recalls Nat through a mouthful of rice, nodding at Nick. “Hydra, they were called. Turned out Sitwell was rotten. He was going to rat them out, so they shut him up.” 

This is partly for Sam’s benefit, although he, too, seems dimly aware of what happened.

“Yeah,” says Steve. Takes another breath. “But they made a mess of it. That was what led to their downfall.”

Sam and Fury watch him expectantly. Natasha’s eyes are almost imperceptibly wider, her mouth set. The room is completely silent. Steve exhales.

“I saw it,” he says, quietly. “Bucky did, too.”

His entire body drops a couple of inches as his shoulders sag, the weight of a secret held for ten years slipping off them and crashing heavily to the floor, like a landslide. “I _saw_ it,” he says again, more decisively, and Natasha’s sharp inhale, Sam’s exclamation of “What the fuck?”, Fury’s incredulous “You _saw_ it?” all fade behind the thudding in his eardrums. 

His head nods rapidly, again and again and again, as tears prick at his eyes.

“I was an eyewitness.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you want the French bits...
> 
>  _Dans quelle pièce se trouve James Barnes? Oui? Douze? Merci,_ \- Which room is James Barnes in? Yes? Twelve? Thanks.
> 
>  _Sais-tu s’il est là? Oui? Un moment..._ \- Do you know if he's there? One moment...
> 
> tumblr
> 
> I would so love to hear people's thoughts.


	8. Hydra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRUTH TIME.
> 
> This is for Aliset, for her much-needed encouragement and awesomeness, and ab1le0n1 for being lovely.

**Brooklyn, 2006**

Steve would often stay late on a Sunday evening to help Erskine with the week’s books, and Bucky would sometimes head down after his shift at the store to hang around and polish off any pastries that needed to be disposed of.

A week after his mother passed on, Steve went back to Café Glavnaya. He needed to focus on something other than grieving and facing the future alone, and Erskine was a kind, calming presence. He had folded Steve in a hug, murmuring words of encouragement and sympathy, before Steve shrugged him off and got on with setting up the tables for the evening service. 

Bucky, who had stayed close every day, came down as soon as the grocery store closed and hung out in at the bar, taking test shots to experiment with the light levels as the last diners finished up. Steve humoured him, having given up trying to hide from the camera long ago. Truth be told, he enjoyed the feeling of Bucky looking at him like something worth photographing; like something interesting, or well-composed, or beautiful.

Something came over him, then; he sat down still on a stool under a spotlight, face leaning on his fist, a smile growing on his face while Bucky fiddled away with exposures and apertures and focal lengths, muttering “Yeah, that’s a good one,” or “Chin up for me, Stevie.” His still-new grief ebbed and flowed, but being with Bucky already made him feel hopeful. Capable of _more._

Darkness fell, though the summer heat remained. Outside the street was fairly quiet. The place was clean and the barman and sous chef had left; Erskine was still in the kitchen, finishing off for the night. Something happened, almost, which Steve didn’t describe to the police, the FBI, or his friends in the future.

He went to set on the next stool to Bucky, side-by-side.

“Hi!” Bucky smiled, tentatively. “You doing OK?”

“Yeah,” Steve answered. “Look.” He raised his hand and slapped it down on Bucky’s knee, giving it a shake. Bucky sniggered.

Steve left his hand there, not really sure of what to do next. Looking down at it, he spoke again. 

“Buck, I wanted to… talk to you about something.”

Bucky’s demeanour shifted a little then. “Oh yeah?” He said, swiveling slightly inward towards Steve and setting his gaze on him, open and kind.

“Yeah…” Steve felt flustered now, but he pushed on. His hand still gripped Bucky’s knee and he realised he was being a bit aggressive, so he loosed his fingers slightly, making his touch more gentle. He could only manage the occasional glance at Bucky’s eyes.

“Bucky, you’ve been such a good friend. I just wanna thank you for that.”  
He could feel Bucky’s eyes on him. “Sure, pal,” he answered, in an oddly deep voice. Steve curled his fingers against the fabric of Bucky’s jeans and began to move them subtly, forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards. Bucky looked down at the hand on his knee and then up again, his lips parted in curiosity and his eyebrows slightly furrowed.

Steve’s heart thumped hard against his sternum, accelerating like a boulder careering down a mountainside.

“I’ve been thinking, for a while actually…”

All of a sudden he was hyper-focused on the way Bucky was breathing. Bucky’s hand was floating in the air, unsure of where to land.

“I think….”

He thought. A scene flashed before his eyes: Bucky pulling his knee away, laughing nervously. Bucky’s phone going to voicemail. Bucky feeling too awkward to hug him, or touch him at all. Bucky worrying, unsure how to be around him.

“… I think… you need to get a haircut,” he finished, feeling ridiculous.

Bucky laughed out loud, much more hysterically than Steve’s weak performance merited. There was a banging sound.

“SO! Boys! A drink?”

Erskine emerged from the kitchen and Steve snatched away his hand, shifting away from Bucky slightly. He took a deep breath, and noticed the sweat on his brow.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s have a drink,” he said, in a gratingly loud voice.

Erskine turned the lights down, brought out a bottle of schnapps and poured three glasses.

“Good job it’s after hours, Abe,” said Bucky, picking up his drink.

“To Sarah Rogers,” Erskine said, raising his tumbler, “A magnificent woman, who raised an admirable son.” 

Steve bristled, and Bucky nudged him, quipping, “Come on, boss, he ain’t perfect.”

“No,” continued Erskine, smiling. “Not perfect. But you are good-hearted, Steve. That must have a great deal to do with your mother. She must have been very proud to have a son like you.”

Despite himself, Steve felt hot tears prick the rims of his eyes as he swallowed the sweet spirit. He gave Erskine a nod, and Bucky pulled him close in a half-hug.

“Look, Abe,” Steve blurted, meeting Erskine’s twinkling eyes. “I’m… thanks. I’m glad to know you, OK?”

And then, because the moment was already saturated with unruly feelings, he clinked Abe’s glass and said: “Mrs Erskine, too.” Then he turned to Bucky. “Winnie Barnes.”

The three of them drank, to interrupt the flow of sentiment, and Steve felt moments away from another burst of sore-throated sobbing.

The sharp edge of his senses was dulled already by a fraction, but he heard the click of the door, felt a disturbance in the air behind him as it opened. He saw Erskine’s face turn pale and his eyes go wide, though his jaw was set, and turned to see the three regular customers he had never really got to know. They were suited, as always, but accompanied by two more men who were undeniably tough-looking and scary. Erskine gathered himself and coughed.

“I’m afraid we’re closed, Herr Schmidt.”

The most authoritarian of the three smiled back, and spoke in a German accent far colder than Erskine’s. “We just thought we’d join you for a drink, comrade,” he said, “Now that your staff have all finished their work.”

The breeze from outside was nothing at all, but still Steve felt a chill.

“Time for you to go, boys,” Erskine directed them, pushing Steve and Bucky towards the door. “Do you want something from the kitchen?” He asked the group.

As Steve rushed past he heard Schmidt say firmly, “No, no, you stay out here with us, so we can talk.”

He and Bucky bundled out of the door and walked off briskly down the street, more than a little disorientated.

“What the fuck was that?” Bucky asked.

Steve felt extremely uneasy. He knew Erskine was familiar with Schmidt and his friends, but he’d never seen his employer look so shaken, and the scene they’d just witnessed had been laden with menace. He stopped walking just as a black Cadillac with tinted windows glided past them and pulled up outside Glavnaya. 

Instinctively, Steve and Bucky stepped back into the shadows to watch as the driver opened the rear door of the car and both he and his passenger went into the restaurant.

“What the hell’s going on?” Whispered Bucky.

“I don’t know, Buck, but I gotta make sure Abe’s OK.”

“You can’t go back in there, Steve!” Hissed his friend, grabbing at his arm. “Those guys are serious! We do NOT want to piss them off!”

As they watched, one of Schmidt’s friends came back out of the café and stood outside the door like a bouncer.

“Well that doesn’t look good,” Bucky murmured. “Is ya boss up to something?”

“Stop talking!” Steve hissed. He was bleary; already weighed down by bereavement and exhaustion and schnapps, but it was clear that something sinister was happening.

“Did you bring your camera?” He asked.

“Uh… yeah, of course. I grabbed it before we left.”

Steve turned, and Bucky’s camera was clearly hanging around his neck.

“Let me borrow it,” he said, firmly. 

“What the fuck?”

“I’m gonna go see if I can see what’s happening in there.”

“STEVE!” Bucky’s loud whisper was sharp with exasperation. “That is _really fucking STUPID!_ ”

They glared at each other for a beat or two.

“Are you gonna give me the camera?” Steve challenged.

Bucky held his gaze and inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring, then threw up his hands.

“Fuck it all, Rogers. I’ll come with you.”

Steve jerked his chin, keeping his grin inward, and led Bucky back across the street. From where they stood they could see the blinds at Erskine’s café were drawn, and the intimidating figure was standing right outside the door.

“We need to get past the fuckin’ Hulk here, into that alley,” Steve hissed. “We can get to the fire escape. There’s a skylight where we can see into the bar.”

Later, when trying to identify the decisive moment when his life changed forever, Steve would wonder whether they might have given up if the guard hadn’t received a call right then, and ducked into the front door of the café. But that was how it went, and, being forced to seize the opportunity, Steve darted forward and ran into the alleyway with Bucky on his heels.

The boys crept around behind the kitchen and found the bottom of the cast-iron steps. Steve’s heart was in his mouth as they mounted slowly, taking care not to make any sound. Two floors up, just as Steve thought, they peered over the railing to find they could just about see down into the bar area of the restaurant. The lights were still on in the café and it was so dark outside that they were confident no-one below could see them.

A bald-headed man with glasses sat on a bar stool, in animated conversation with Schmidt. Erskine stood at the bar, and it looked as though they were laughing. Steve’s shoulders sank in relief. The bespectacled man looked somehow familiar – was he another regular customer?

“Fuuuuuuuuck,” breathed Bucky beside him. “That’s…. Steve, he’s the fucking Police Commissioner!”

“No, he can’t be!” Steve whispered back, but that panicked feeling in his gut was back.

“I saw him on the news!”

“SSSHH!” Hissed Steve. “Just… get some pictures, OK?”

Bucky raised his camera and began shooting, capturing what he could at the awkward line of sight afforded by their position. “What are they doin’ here?” He wondered out loud.

“This is dodgy as hell,” Steve replied. As he watched, Erskine made towards the kitchen again, but pulled up as Schmidt beckoned him back. The man with the glasses, who was apparently the Police Commissioner of New York City, began speaking animatedly to Schmidt. Steve couldn’t quite see his face any more, but the atmosphere was obviously charged. One of Schmidt’s associates, a man Steve had heard Erskine address as Zola, moved in and out of the frame, pacing restlessly.

Suddenly Schmidt pulled himself up straight and folded his arms. He turned his head sharply to the side and gave a nod, and out of nowhere, the police chief crumbled to the floor.

Steve gasped and clutched his hand to his mouth. Suddenly everything was moving slowly and repeating: a patch of deep read spread through the fabric of the head cop’s expensive shirt like ink on blotting paper as he slumped against the bar. Erskine dashed around the bar and grabbed the man’s wrist. Apparently registering no pulse, he rounded on Schmidt, his face contorted in anger.

Steve came back to life at that, but realised Bucky had frozen beside him. 

“KEEP SHOOTING!” He urged his friend, and Bucky nodded dumbly, raising his camera again with shaking hands.

Below them an expression of pure fear crossed Erskine’s face.

A split second later he took a bullet to the head and fell at Schmidt’s feet.

The frame froze.

Steve staggered backwards, winded, gasping for air. Bucky swung round and dropped to his knees in front of him, whispering “Fuckfuckfuckfuck”, staring at Steve with wild, terrified eyes.

“They shot him! They fucking shot him!” Steve spluttered out between rapid breaths, clutching at his friend’s arm. “Shit, Bucky….” In the dim light his field of vision narrowed, with darkness encroaching around the edges.

Bucky’s camera hung around his neck and knocked against Steve’s arm as he slumped down, encircling Steve with protective arms.

“OK listen, buddy,” he began in a low, wobbly voice. Steve looked up into his pale face, wanting to vomit. His slender form was rigid and his temples felt tight. He knew Bucky could see he that had imploded, and why; he was already on the ropes. He’d buried his mother a week ago. And Erskine had become… Erskine was important. To lose him in such a shocking, brutal way was more than Steve could handle.

“Breathe in through your nose.”

Steve nodded, and forced himself to press his lips together.

“OK hold it… then out through your mouth.”

Steve himself pulled back from the brink of unconsciousness as Bucky held his gaze, looking terrified but determined.

“Can you move?” 

Steve nodded frantically and they both rose to their feet.

“We need to get out of here right now,” whispered Bucky. Steve could tell his friend was forcing himself to stay in control, but he was brittle, tense with fear. He clutched Bucky’s waist and they rushed down the fire escape steps, as quietly as they could, retracing their steps towards the street. Bucky had one arm around Steve, and with the other hand he clutched his camera.

 

**Haiti, 2016**

Steve speaks only for a few minutes, giving his friends the main points of the night that transformed his life, but leaving out the extent of his fear, and horror, and heartbreak. Those things barely need to be hinted at; they’re all over his face, in the tremors of his voice and the shortness of his breath.

Nat sidles closer and holds his hand, while Fury and Sam listen attentively. Steve comes to a stop and nobody speaks for a while.

“So… I’m sorry. I’m not actually supposed to tell people, for your safety as well as mine.”

Sam exhales sharply. “Fuck that,” he says. Then, “I’ve got to say mate, that is much heavier than the backstory I expected.”

His comment is well-judged. Steve smiles a little, relaxes a little, and Nat wraps her arms around him from the side. “говно́”, she says. Steve rests his head on hers for a minute, then sits up, takes a sip of water and looks down at the table, steeling himself.

“That’s not all… is it?” Nat prompts. Steve gives her a steadying, unflinching look, and shakes his head. There’s more.

 

**Brooklyn, 2006**

The getaway was a bust.

When Bucky and Steve staggered out of the alleyway onto the neon lit Brighton Beach Avenue, Steve wheezing and spluttering while Bucky gritted his teeth, helpless to quiet him, they immediately attracted the attention of the hulking guard outside Glavnaya.

In English, the man yelled “HEY! WHATCHADOIN’?” and like terrified amateurs, they both turned to see him looking right at them.

“Fuck, Steve, we gotta run,” Bucky muttered, with panic and urgency in his voice, and they heard the guard give two thumps on the café’s window before he lumbered after them. Steve’s mind had gone blank with fear but Bucky dragged him across the street in the direction of the steps up to the overhead subway line.

“QUICK! The train’s comin’ in! There’s… people,” Bucky panted. Gasping for breath, Steve looked over his shoulder as he ran, and almost collapsed again when he saw there were now two men pursuing them, and one wasn’t even bothering to conceal the gun in his hand.

“Shit! Shit! Bucky!” Steve spluttered, out of his mind with terror, and Bucky was there, his hand at Steve’s back, propelling him up the steps with strong arms.

 

**Haiti, 2016**

Steve realises his breathing has sped up and he needs to take a minute. He lifts his eyes from the table and sees his colleagues, his trusted friends, watching him silently. He hasn’t spoken about that night out loud in ten years, not since he gave his account at the trial, although he’s relived it plenty.

Natasha rubs his arm slowly. “Do you want to stop?” She asks.

“No, no. I’ll tell you. I’ve almost told you everything now.”

Steve hears the tremors in his own voice and takes a few steadying breaths. “Bucky….” 

As soon as he starts again, his nose tingles and tears form. But he’s all in, he’ll tell the story through tears if he has to.

“The details are kinda sketchy after that, but I know the important stuff,” he continues, his voice starting to crack. “I know what Bucky did.

“I could barely breathe. I wasn’t gonna make it, and as far as we knew right then, these guys would kill us right there. Bucky… he… he took off his camera, from, uh, around his neck…” Steve swallows, and gestures his neck, “and he shoved it in my hands, sayin’ ‘This goes straight to the cops’, and he _dragged_ me up those steps, with this guy shouting ‘STOP’ and all kinds of Russian shit behind us.

“And, uh, the train was right there, and he threw me towards the doors shouting ‘GO!’”

Steve breaks off again, and looks up, pleadingly. “Guys, I… I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. You know I wouldn’t have left him? I would NEVER have left him, if I had the slightest bit of control over what happened?”

From nowhere, Natasha produces a tissue and wraps an arm around Steve, as he starts to sob.  
“Mate…” Sam starts, “Just… yeah. We do know. Of course we know that.”

Steve looks down again. “He got shot. Bucky got shot.”

“FUCK,” Sam curses, snapping his head back as if it was him who was shot.

“I looked back at the doors, with this fucking camera in my hands, and it was dark outside so I couldn’t see what happened, but I think he… I think he tried to push the guy back so he couldn’t get to me, so he couldn’t get on the train, and…. And as the train pulled away, I saw him go down the steps. Like, head first. I absolutely thought he was dead.”

Steve pauses to steady himself.

“That was the last time I saw him,” he croaks.

“He was… he was my best friend, and I loved him so much, and I can’t fucking believe I did that to him. That I… that I made him come with me, that I left him, that I….”

Steve tails off and glances at Nat, who is rubbing his arm vigorously with tears in her own eyes.

“I could have killed him, Nat.”

“HEY,” she says, immediately. “It was NOT your fault. And he made it, didn’t he?”

Steve swallows hard and nods again.

“Yeah, yeah I know he lived. He got shot in the arm and hurt his head, he had memory problems afterward, but he made it. And that’s all I know. That’s all. I didn’t go back for him. I don’t know why I didn’t go back. Why didn’t I go back?”

He tails off, and there’s a heavy silence. Steve takes it upon himself to break it.

“So, you can probably all guess now how I got to London.”

Nick Fury meets Steve’s eyes with a look of newfound understanding. 

“They put you into witness protection.”

“I had nothing to lose, did I?” Steve confirms, somewhat bitterly. “I had pictures, some of them were pretty clear, but they needed me, too. I mean, I knew it was a big deal, to testify against these guys, but my mom was gone, I didn’t know if Bucky was gonna make it, I was all alone, and I had one chance to take those fuckers down.” 

His tone has turned angry, but as he looks up again he’s wrong-footed by Sam looking back at him with something approaching amusement.

“So you went for it.” Sam leans back and folds his arms, allowing the corners of his mouth to turn up. “Of course you bloody did, mate. Captain America strikes again.”

Steve is still queasy with emotion, but despite himself he finds himself tickled by his friend’s gentle prod. Sam’s right, of course; his life can probably be spelled out as a series of dramatic gestures and grand sacrifice. 

His eyes are still red but he laughs a little, and Nat joins in, Sam and Fury too, and Steve thinks maybe they accept that about him. That they possibly even like him for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading.
> 
>  
> 
> tumblr


	9. Peggy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve tells the story of what happened in Brooklyn ten years previously that caused him to end up in London without Bucky.
> 
> Big thanks to anyone who's reading this.

**Brooklyn, 2006**

When he found himself on the Q train without Bucky, Steve almost gave up.

He fell to his knees in the pale white light of the carriage, his eyes fixed on the darkened window where random lights flashed past, and the rumble of the tracks receded to a hum in his ears. His breathing was fast, too fast, but the air wasn’t enough.

Steve blinked, and found himself looking up into the worried faces of a middle-aged woman and a twenty-something man with corn rows, large headphones around his neck and a ‘Carolina Panthers’ bomber jacket. The woman was patting his cheek and jabbering in high-pitched, nasal tones that sounded Chinese. He blinked again, and the man was sitting him up, offering him a bottle of water.

Out of nowhere the noise of the speeding train rushed up into his ears. A loud bang made him wince and screw up his eyes, and immediately an image flashed before them of Erskine, slumping to the ground with a wound to his chest. Fuck. The café. BUCKY.

“BUCKY,” Steve started, and tried to scramble to his feet, but he swayed, and his two fellow-passengers grabbed him by an arm each.

“ _BUCKY,_ ” he repeated, looking wildly from one to the other. 

“You sit down here!” commanded the woman, yanking him towards a shiny pale blue plastic bench.

“My friend. The _camera_ ,” Steve babbled. 

“This camera?” asked the man, gesturing towards Steve’s chest. Steve’s eyes travelled downwards and there it was, Bucky’s camera, containing the all-important evidence, slung around his neck. _This goes straight to the cops_. Instinctively he grabbed hold of it with both hands and stared up at the man. The train lurched around a bend and started to slow. 

They were approaching a station. Sheepshead Bay. Steve had only been out for half a minute.

“Yo...” the man said, frowning. “You wanna… get out? Do you need some help?”

Steve willed himself to focus. “I gotta… the cops. I gotta get to the cops right now,” he managed, fixing the man with what he hoped was a determined gaze. “This is EVIDENCE.” He held up the camera with both hands.

There was a pause. The man sat down and exhaled heavily.

“Alright,” he said, finally. “We can go to the 70th precinct, not far from Avenue H. Imma get you there.”

“Thanks,” said Steve, unsure why this stranger was helping him. “I’m Steve.”

“T’Challa.”

“Uh… did you see what happened to me, T’Challa? Cause, uh, I’m not completely sure.” Steve forced his voice to sound as steady as he could.

“Someone was chasing you!” spoke up the Chinese woman. “Someone pushed you into train. They were fighting on the platform. Drunk! Young men, very violent!”

T’Challa’s expression was serious. “It looked kinda bad,” he said.

“It was bad,” confirmed Steve, tears welling up in his eyes now and forcing their way down his cheeks. “Oh God, it was really fucking bad. My friend…”

Where was Bucky now? Cold dread returned, making Steve sweat.

“I won’t lie,” T’Challa said, quietly. “I think your boy went down.”

“WHAT?” Steve was perilously close to another panic attack.

“Stop it! You upset him!” chastised the Chinese lady.

“I need to get off!” Steve shrieked. “I need to go get him! They’re gonna…”

T’Challa grabbed him by the shoulders and looked into his terror-stricken eyes with a calming gaze. 

“Steve, listen. Seems to me your boy wanted you to get this camera to the cops. Believe me, you can’t do nothin’ for him now. There are people around. If he’s OK, he’ll be OK. You with me?”

Steve stared back at him.

“You can’t do nothin’ to help him right now. But if you go back there, if you don’t bring this shit to the police…” 

He gestured at the camera. “If you don’t report this fast, then maybe it’s all for nothing. Do you understand?”

Steve kept staring while his mind slowly processed what T’Challa was telling him. There was a small window of opportunity to catch the men who killed Erskine, and… hurt Bucky. Nodding dumbly, he staggered backwards.

He brought his heels up onto the seat so he could hide his face behind his knees. His shoulders shook with stifled sobs until Steve felt a touch he’d never forget; T’Challa’s hand, heavy, warm and reassuring, between his shoulder blades.

“You brave young man!” affirmed the woman, bringing out a small bottle and attempting to shove it under Steve’s nose. She said something in Chinese, causing both boys to look at her enquiringly. She rolled her eyes. 

“Man can’t become perfect without trials.” She said. Steve stared at her in confusion.

“Tough shit, make you a better person!” she explained, poking him with the bottle again.

“Is that right?” Steve sniffled.

“Yes! Chinese medicine will help too!” she insisted. And it did help – Steve managed to smile through his tears.

*

**Haiti, 2016**

Steve’s given up trying not to cry in front of his friends, and even Natasha is suspiciously red-eyed, her arm linked with Steve’s and her head on his shoulder.

“I don’t… it’s funny, I remember the part on the train so clearly,” he says, “I called the cops and said I was coming in… But the whole part about bringing the camera to the precinct, telling them what happened… it’s blurry. That guy from the Q was as good as his word, though. He came with me and he didn’t leave until it was clear I wasn’t gonna go anywhere that night. I didn’t…. I don’t think I got the chance to thank him.”

Sam can’t help himself. “Well, some people are just decent for the hell of it, huh Steve.”

Steve gives a half smile. “Look, I did what had to be done. I reported, I testified, I helped put away the bad guys, and then I landed here. Or London.”

“Good thing, too,” drawls Fury.

“And… Bucky?” asks Natasha, quietly.

Steve acknowledges her with a glance, before looking down.

“I was in shock, OK? All I could think was, _‘This goes straight to the cops. Go straight to the cops.’_ And then that guy… I thought I had to go, to give the cops the best chance, y’know? But all the way to the precinct, I just wanted to go find Bucky. I shoulda just got off at the next stop and gone back.”

His tears are flowing freely, now, and Natasha rubs his back. “Hey, you did what you could. You did what he told you. He didn’t want you risking your life.”

“The first thing I asked the cops was for them to look for him,” Steve goes on, his voice shaky. “It turned out that passers-by had called the ambulance and he was taken to the hospital, but it took all night for someone to tell me he wasn’t dead. My FBI contact took pity on me in the end and looked him up. She actually even went to see him for me, although I think it was more because he was a potential co-witness, but it turned out he couldn’t remember anything.” 

This elicits a sympathetic squeeze from Natasha.

“Yeah, he… he was hurt pretty bad, but he was hanging on. Thank God. And the FBI agent told him I was OK. But… he doesn’t know why I disappeared, I mean, he can probably guess, but after that, I wasn’t allowed to contact anyone. 

“I mean, I’m no saint.” Sam snorts at that. “I’ve tried. Of course I’ve tried. He’s not on any social media that I can see, and it’s not like I can call his mom. None of the James Barnses I’ve found online seem to be him. All I knew was that… that he wanted to be a photographer… but… but I don’t know if that was gonna be possible for him.” His voice is wavering again.

The room is silent for a while. Steve looks up and sees that Sam’s face is in his hands.

“Oh… hey, I’m sorry, Sam. I know you went through a similar thing. I didn’t…”

Sam lifts his head and shakes it rapidly, as if to wake himself up. He hasn’t been crying, but his brow won’t uncrease.

“No… no mate,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He looks Steve dead in the eye and a moment of recognition passes between them; a melancholy chord that Steve’s been waiting to strike. Telling his story to these people warms him more than he ever thought it might. He almost finds himself feeling more human.

“And now,” Sam says slowly, “You see him for the first time in ten years, and he’s trying to stitch you up.”

“He didn’t know it was me,” Steve snaps back immediately. “He was just… We were both shocked.”

“Woah, easy tiger,” retorts Sam, palms raised placatingly. “I’m just gonna say this once… obviously you have a lot of… feelings about this guy, and, look man, I’m with you, whatever you wanna do, but… just be careful, mate. It’s been a long time. He might not want to know.”

Steve blinked at him. Despite the tone of his recent encounters with Bucky, he couldn’t even conceive of the idea that the man he still considered his best friend could become unreachable.

“I think he will,” he replied.

**Brooklyn, 2006**

“Thanks for helping me,” Steve muttered. He and T’Challa sat side-by-side on slightly broken plastic chairs, waiting for an officer to talk to them.

“S’alright,” T’Challa answered, a little weary with the lateness of the hour.

They were quiet for a few minutes.

“Why’d you help me?” Steve asked, unable to think of less blunt words.

T’Challa regarded him for a while. His eyes looked heavy. Finally, he replied.

“I lost my pop.”

“Oh! I’m sorry,” Steve interrupted, but T’Challa waved him away. “Naw, man, I’m dealing with it. He passed during surgery after an accident.”

Steve nodded, momentarily distracted from his own pain, but didn’t interrupt again.

“So… I was angry, y’know? I was pissed as hell. I couldn’t face it, wanted to blame someone. I started off trying to sue the hospital…” Steve raised his eyebrows in surprise, “…and got deep into that, so I didn’t have to move on. But one day, I got so mad about everything, yelling at my lawyers on the phone and shit, and my mom said to me: ‘this isn’t what he would have wanted’. 

“It hit me then, she was right. I let it all go. That’s when I started to deal, and try to get positive. You feel me?”

Steve was impressed. “You prob’ly coulda made a lot of dough,” he said. T’Challa shrugged.

“Doesn’t matter. My folks are both orthodontists. Me and my mom, we’re doin’ good up in Greenpoint.”

“Greenpoint?” Steve laughed. “Woah, you’re right, you’re doing fine!”

T’Challa smiled back.

“Sure are,” he said. “Our place is so nice, my friends call me the King.”

Steve found himself smiling, too. “What are you, really?” He asks.

T’Challa looked at him sideways. “Columbia. Pre-Law.” 

Steve could see he wasn’t joking but he laughed anyway, more at himself than anything else, and it was a relief to do so.

“What, you thought I was too cool for school?” T’Challa mock-sassed, but he was amused too. Steve was grateful that the carriage Bucky shoved him into contained this man. But then the thought of Bucky plunged him straight back into darkness: Steve should be with him, not here.

“OK, come through Mr Rogers,” came the sharp call from the reception desk, and Steve parted ways with T’Challa, reeling slightly from the friendship he had shown. 

*

Steve Rogers had known some long nights, but without question the longest was the one he spent staring at a wall, lying curled up on a foldup cot in Brooklyn’s 70th precinct, getting through a minute at a time. The cops had Bucky’s camera now, and he was dimly aware that confirmation had been radioed in that the bodies of Erskine and Sitwell had been found, but he barely cared. 

His eyes were wide and dry. His breathing was even, but shallow, and his body was wracked with the kind of nausea that sticks around, that won’t let you take pleasure in eating for days, or weeks, or ever again. Sleep, the cops who took his statement had told him, the FBI will be here first thing tomorrow, but Steve’s mind played an endless loop of grief and rage and self-loathing.

There was his mother, gaunt and striving to conceal her pain from him until the last second. Then came Erskine, who had seen Steve the way his mother saw him, and whose loss, Steve now knew, ripped open an old wound he hadn’t perceived before he met him. 

But dwelling on either of these was preferable to thinking about Bucky. Whenever he held Bucky’s face in his thoughts for too long he felt intolerable anguish, and when he searched his mind for consolation, it came up blank. Misery buffeted him relentlessly. 

Evidence be damned: he wished again and again he’d listened to his gut instead of T’Challa, and resolved never to go against his own instinct again, for anyone.

 _He could be dead_ , thudded his stomach. _Dead,_ echoed his mind. _Dead. My fault. If not dead, hurt_ , screamed his lungs. _My fault. I should have gone back,_ his conscience reproached. _This night will never end,_ throbbed his pulse. I won’t survive it. I shouldn’t. Why would I even want to?

 _I didn’t tell him_ , Steve’s heart howled at him. _Why didn’t I tell him? Why didn’t I? Why did I, of all people, think another day would come?_

*

“Good morning, Steve.”

The clear, British tones were so out of place in this Brooklyn police station that it took Steve only a few breaths to shift from his miserable reverie into the here and now. He slowly rolled into a sitting position and glowered at the new presence in the poky interview room. His overloaded brain took several moments to take in this immaculately made-up woman with glossy chestnut hair and a tactical vest bearing the large letters F-B-I.

“I’m Agent Peggy Carter,” She extended her hand. Steve shook it limply, and realised he was staring.

“Sorry for my… uh… I haven’t really slept,” he muttered, and she smiled at him so kindly he nearly crumpled at her feet.

“Do you need more time?” she asked gently. “We have a lot to discuss.”

“I’ll talk to you for as long as you want,” Steve had replied, “as soon as you can tell me what happened to Bucky.”

Agent Carter acted immediately. She took down Bucky’s details one more time, and within half an hour she returned with two paper cups of tea, some hot toast, and the news that James Barnes was at Mount Sinai hospital, unconscious, but alive.

The relief settled over him like the dust after a building has collapsed. Steve closed his eyes with it, and found his consciousness briefly spinning away, as if he was about to spontaneously fall asleep. 

“Can I go?” he asked, “Can I talk to him? Please, I really need to talk to him.”

“He can’t talk to you,” Carter said, sitting down beside Steve and setting down the breakfast things. They looked appetising, actually, although Steve strangely couldn’t smell them. “He’s not conscious, remember? He has a serious head injury, Steve. I have to be honest, it’s touch and go. His mother is there. Let’s… let’s talk first, and then we’ll see about Bucky.”

Steve nodded and picked up his tea in a trembling hand, forcing himself to sip. Peggy had stirred in some sugar, wisely assuming he would need it.

“I shoulda gone back to find him,” Steve said. “I shouldn’t have let him come with me.”

“Now listen,” she said, firmly. “Do you think your friend is capable of making his own choices?”

Steve was thrown for a moment, chastened. He nodded.

“Then stop making this all about you. He chose to come with you and he chose to get you, AND the evidence he helped you gather, to the right place. What he did was heroic. You should respect that.”

Her face was gentle, but Steve knew she was right. And now, it was up to him to make sure that Bucky’s actions were worthwhile.

“I’m going to keep you informed. I promise you, I will let you know about every tiny development in his condition,” she assured him.

“Thank you,” Steve replied, numb. Bucky hanging in the balance, and Steve prevented from going to him. He felt a strange, detached dullness, as if his feelings hadn’t kicked in yet, as if he was waiting to decide how to feel.

“Now,” She began, in that brisk but kindly tone. “I’m sorry to have to ask you to go over this again, but I’d be grateful if you could tell me one more time exactly what you saw last night. I’ll tell you now that I’ve been interested in the men in your pictures for some time, and that right now, you are in fact the most important person in the world to me.” 

She smiled. Something about her made him feel safe, and he had an urge to stick close to her.

“They used to come in a lot,” he started, in a low voice, “but Erskine used to serve them, not me.”

*

HYDRA was the name of the organisation Agent Carter had been investigating her entire career – an insidious, serpentine entity with a knack for turning every setback into an opportunity. She characterised it as a decades-old organised crime network, originating from Russia but conducting operations across the globe. 

“It’s the usual mob stuff,” she said, vaguely, in response to Steve’s questions about their activities. “You know, power, corruption, money…” she tailed off, sipping her tea. “Suffice to say, they cause widespread misery, destabilisation, and, as we have seen, the occasional death.

“They’re big,” she continued, “But every criminal network has its key figures, the loss of whom would pose significant risks to its operations. I don’t mind telling you that the men whose crime you witnessed yesterday are important figures.” She paused for emphasis. “Extremely. Important.”

Steve’s mind was dazed and exhausted: he struggled to take in the details, to accept that the last 24 hours were really happening. The other man killed had indeed been Jasper Sitwell, the NYPD Police Commissioner who had long been in HYDRA’s thrall until Carter’s team had exposed him and persuaded him to inform on his criminal patrons. 

Steve almost brought up the dry toast he’d forced down when Carter told him that she’d known Erskine, too. That her colleagues had contacted him the year before, when they realised that his café was a popular haunt for their people of interest, and he had easily agreed to help them.

“I have to tell you, Steve, that it’s seems likely that the motive behind the killings you saw was related to Sitwell and Erskine’s relationship with my bureau.”

“I got that,” Steve responded, flatly. “Tell me, Agent Carter, can you find them?”

She paused.

“We have two of them in custody already, thanks to your swift reporting of the murders,” she answered, levelly, only just failing to completely conceal her excitement. “Schmidt and Zola. We were able to pick them up at their safe house.”

“The Germans,” Steve said.

“Actually, Zola is Swiss.”

“Why were they there? If they’re so important, why would they get their own hands dirty like that?”

“You’re right, they probably had others pull the trigger,” Carter agreed. “But mobsters are like any other powerful men. Their egos make them vulnerable.” She took another sip. “Mythology is a vital element of organised crime. Sometimes the chiefs like to show their faces to add to their legend, or simply because they enjoy intimidating their enemies.”

“Godddamn playground bullies with guns,” muttered Steve.

“Well, quite.”

“And will Bucky’s pictures put them away?”

“We can get them for murder, certainly,” she replied. “We’re working on the rest. There is a huge amount we can’t prove, even now, but we should have enough to put them away. Your pictures are key, but they’re not 100% conclusive on their own. To be certain of a conviction, Steve, we’d need… you.”

“I’ll do it,” Steve replied immediately.

“No… wait. I need to explain first. We can keep you hidden before the trial, but… I think I explained the extent of this organisation. To testify against them would be to put yourself at considerable risk. The only way I could guarantee your safety afterwards would be to… move you.”

“You mean… Witness protection? Like, for real?” Steve asked. She nodded. He thought for a moment or two. 

“I’ll do it.” He affirmed, again. “Steve…” Carter began, “I’LL DO IT,” Steve insisted. 

“Well, that’s very brave, but you don’t have to decide now,” Carter replied.

“OK, I’ll think about it again,” Steve said, “But I’m gonna do it. Look, Agent Carter, I just lost my mother…” 

Her had flew to her mouth. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. This is unbearable.”

“Just lemme say this, okay? So my mom is gone. I’m eighteen years old, and I’m alone. These pieces of shit killed Erskine, and thanks to me they may have killed my best friend. I can do something about that, or I can let them keep doin’ this shit.” He took a breath. “It’s easy for me, Carter. What do I got to lose? Really?”

“We’re talking about a permanent relocation, Steve. You wouldn’t be able to contact anyone from your past life, under any circumstances,” She pushed. “To do so would be to compromise both you and them. This includes Bucky too, assuming…”

Steve swallowed a surge of bile as he stared down at his dirty sneakers against grey linoleum. The harsh light of the interrogation room made it impossible to tell what time of day it was.

“Take some time to think about it. We can talk some more. For now, I want you to stay at this hotel.” She passed him a card. “My colleagues will take you there, and remain with you until we agree a plan. I can also… I can have our counsellor contact you. It might help you to discuss things with someone completely neutral.”

Steve looked up at her, then, and saw the lines beneath the pressed powder on her face. She reached for his hand.

“Look, for what it’s worth, I’m so sorry you’re in this position,” She said, gently, and Steve’s stomach twinged. “These bastards don’t care how many lives they destroy. I will get them, somehow. You don’t have to do this.”

“I… look, lemme do the right thing, Agent Carter.”

She squeezed his hand and smiled again. “I hope you can get some rest, Steve. We’ll speak later.”

 

**Haiti, 2016**

Despite the hour-long nap, Steve feels completely exhausted by the day’s emotional upheaval and decides to head back to his own hotel. Fury shakes his hand as he leaves, which is oddly moving. “It goes without saying that your story goes no further, Buchanan,” the CEO says, clapping him on the shoulder.

Sam gets behind the wheel of the Shield jeep and drives Steve and Natasha back to their hotel in near-silence. Before they turn in, Sam sweeps Steve up in a hug, promising whatever support he can give. Natasha, on the other hand, follows Steve all the way to his bedroom door and then through it.  
“What are you doing?” he asks.

“I didn’t want you to be alone,” she shrugs, and pulls out a hip flask.

Steve smiles, truly grateful for her presence. Occasionally her intuition can be a bit intrusive, but she mostly uses her powers for good. He takes a couple of swigs from the silver flask and recognises the local rum from the thick, spicy sweetness that follows the burn. 

Natasha gives him a grin and throws an arm around his shoulders, squeezing him briefly.

“Thanks. That was actually just what I needed,” he says, half-surprised, as soon as he realises it. The rum AND the encouraging hug.

Natasha knows Steve has trouble falling asleep, even at the best of times. She perches on the end of Steve’s unmade bed, taking the odd sip of rum and fiddling with her phone while he brushes his teeth and changes into sweat pants. She’s being unobtrusive, but she’s not allowing Steve to be alone with his thoughts, and he could almost marry her for that.

He comes out of the bathroom and climbs onto the bed. Natasha looks up.

“Tell me about him,” she asks, affectionately.

“Who, Bucky?” Steve frowns, and pulls at the corner of the blanket as he climbs under the covers.

“Yeah. What was he like?”

“Oh!” Steve laughs nervously. “Well, he… he’s my best friend.” He looks away, half trying to conceal the grin he can’t hold back. Natasha smiles in response. “And…?”

“And, he… he just gets me. You know? It was always so easy to be around him. And fun. We always had a lot of fun. You know, teenage stuff. Basketball. Parties. We would talk a lot, laugh a lot.”

“Seriously?” teases Natasha. “You used to have _fun?_ ”

Steve smiles sadly. “He was a popular kid, I really wasn’t, but he hung out with me anyway. He was so loyal like that. Kind. And he looked out for me. I mean, you can imagine what I was like, I was smaller than I am now, but kinda scrappy, and I kinda used to get into fights a lot….”

Natasha laughs.

“Yeah. Exactly. But he’d usually get me out of it. Sometimes I think I…”

Steve checks himself. _I did it BECAUSE I knew he’d be there_ , he had been about to say, but he’s not sure he wants either of them to process that.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing, I… I guess he made me feel safe.”

Natasha’s smiling fondly at him. “What else?” She lies down next to him, on top of the covers. They both stare up at the stationery fan hanging from the ceiling.

Steve needs little prompting. “He was really into photography. Sporty, but loved to read, too. And he loved music… he was, actually, kind of a good singer. And dancer. And people loved him. He just had that way about him, you know? He was great with girls, so gallant to them…”

Natasha cocks an eyebrow at that.

“Handsome?”

“ _YEAH,_ ” scoffs Steve immediately, as though it were an obvious fact, then blinks rapidly. “I mean… everyone thought… I can appreciate a good-looking guy, can’t I?”

She’s grinning broadly at Steve, now, lying on her side and resting the side of her chin on her knuckles.

“What?” he asks.

“You’re smiling.”

Steve flushes slightly. “YOU’RE smiling.”

“Hey! It’s OK, Steve. It’s nice.”

“Shut up,” He mumbles, and looks away. “Honestly, Nat, he was the best part of me.”

“Of YOU? Wow, he _must_ be a good guy.”

“No, no… you don’t get it.” Steve can hear his bleariness in his own voice. “You remember when you said I was a good leader? Well, I wasn’t always that way. Yeah, I mean, the single-minded rage against injustice is me, but the _people_ stuff, the _kindness_ … that’s all Bucky. I got it from him.” 

Natasha nods and gives a small smile.

“He sounds great.”

“Yeah.”

“He obviously meant a lot to you. Means a lot.”

“Yeah.” All of a sudden, he’s run out of energy to say more. His limbs feel stiff, heavy, mechanical. Natasha watches him for a moment as he stifles a yawn.

“Are you sleepy?” she asks, softly.

Steve rolls over to face away from her and closes his eyes.

“Kinda.”

She doesn’t leave.

“Nat, do you wanna…” he mumbles, “Could you stay here?”

Steve can hear the smile in her voice.

“Sure. As long as you don’t try to grope me while pretending to be asleep, because you know I’ll cut your hands off.”

Steve’s answering chuckle is muted, and his last thought is to wonder if their conversation was real, or dreamt.

 

**Upstate New York, 2006**

The six months Steve spent in hiding while the police were building their case against Hydra were like being in suspended animation. He couldn’t contact anyone in case he risked endangering them, or himself, so instead he went online anonymously. He started a degree in international relations by correspondence through NYU, and filled his empty days with hours of exercise, determined to make the body that had let him down so often into a strong, powerful vessel to help him survive in his new life.

He spoke to Peggy Carter regularly but didn’t see her again until just before the trial, when he took a break from preparing his testimony to talk to her about his new identity. It was clear she noticed the change in his physique immediately.

“Well, look at this!” She grinned “You’re a new man! Haha, sorry. I might have to start calling you Hercules!”

Steve snorted at this attempt at humour.

“I apologise. I was just trying to lighten the mood,” she went on “It’s good. You’re almost unrecognisable. This will help with your new identity.”

She had offered Steve a few options on where he could settle, and he’d picked London on the basis that Bucky had always wanted to see it.

“Have you been talking to our counsellor?” She asked him. 

Steve pulled a bored face, and then realised he was being childish. “No, ma’am,” he said. “I just… don’t think it would do anything for me? I think I can get by on my own.”

“Learn to accept help, Steve,” she cautioned. “You might need it in London.

“Now,” she continued. “Operation rebirth!” Steve rolled his eyes at her attempt to keep things light. “I wanted to talk to you about apartments. I have details here of three potentials. If you want, you can transfer your degree to University College London and attend classes there. It’ll be a good way to make friends.”

“Will I have, like, a guard or anything?”

“You won’t need any police presence over there, but I’ll continue to be your liaison. We can speak whenever you like, work permitting. You’ll have to let me know if you ever feel concerned about your safety.”

Steve was comforted enough to let her see him smile.

“You shouldn’t struggle financially,” Peggy plowed on. “You have your private capital, plus the provision we make for the first five years. And anyway, a smart boy like you is bound to get a good job after graduation.”

Steve leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling, letting her words sink in. In theory he’d always understood that agreeing to the witness protection programme would mean he would live out his adulthood in a new place, but he’d never actually thought through the reality of finishing college, finding a job, making his way, in a new city, starting from scratch.

For the first time it all began to seem real. The trial, the relocation. The never seeing Bucky again.  
Peggy had informed him that Bucky was recovering, that he had been able to leave hospital and pursue treatment for his arm and his brain injury, and the thought of him coping with that brought Steve so much pain he tried to avoid thinking about it. After everything Bucky had done, always done, for him, Steve was now leaving him alone to cope with a huge crisis without him.

Next to the horror of moving on without Bucky, the idea of testifying in a court room against murderous gangsters seemed almost easy. While Steve still felt certain that he needed to do his part in ending this hideous organisation, to do so meant giving up something, someone, that felt so fundamental to his being that he couldn’t really believe life would go on.

“How do people… usually cope with, you know, missing their old friends?” He asked, thickly.

Peggy had been upbeat, transparently so, but now her manner softened. “Steve, you’re actually the first person I’ve ever placed in witness protection who does not themselves have a criminal past. Usually we move gangsters who agree to testify against their former bosses in exchange for their freedom. It’s rarely innocents, like you, who end up in the programme. In that sense, you’re a pioneer.

“Most of our key witnesses move with their immediate families, and I have never met one who actually cared much about anyone else they might be leaving behind.

“I can tell it’s going to be difficult for you, to leave Bucky. You have to believe that it’s going to be safest for both of you if you drop contact altogether.”

“But can’t I just… one phone call? Just to tell him why?”

“I can’t take the risk, Steve. I’m sorry. You know that Hydra is a deeply unscrupulous organisation, known for its aggressive retaliations, and you don’t want them to find out that Bucky was a co-witness, even if he can’t remember what he saw.”

 _Bucky would be safest if he never spoke to Steve again._ That was a hell of a thought.

“But… isn’t the point of this that we get rid of Hydra? At least, the US arm?”

Peggy exhaled slowly. “Yeeees,” she replied, her tone slightly cagier than Steve was expecting. “Yes, this will strike them a serious blow. We imagine Hydra activities in the US will cease, especially for the time being, but we can’t be sure that everything will fall apart just because we lock up the leaders. That’s why we’re moving you. Your safety is my responsibility, and I’m very… invested in it,” she concluded, firmly.

“… And there’s still the matter of the third man you saw.”

The FBI had been aware of Schmidt and Zola for some time but nothing was known about the third man, described by both Erskine and Steve from his regular visits to Glavnaya, including on the night of the murders. Erskine had named him as Karpov, a Russian, but of course there was no trace of him on record that Peggy had been able to find. She hoped he was a minor player, but he still posed a potential threat.

Steve was no expert in these affairs, but he accepted that he didn’t want to put his friend on the line for the sake of an awkward ‘goodbye’ conversation, not matter how much it tore his heart to ribbons. Bucky would be fine; he had Becca and his mom, lots of friends, a real gift for photography. He would probably go to NYU and have a thousand girlfriends and a brilliant career. Yeah, he might miss Steve, for a while, but no-one feels cut up about something forever.

“OK,” Steve said, in blank acceptance. “So. What else does ‘Operation Rebirth’ require?”  
Peggy looks at him with a combination of pity and admiration.

“We’ll start with your name,” She said. “You can keep your first name. It’s unremarkable, and we find it helps if people don’t have to change absolutely everything. But we need to choose you a new last name.”

Steve could only think of one.

*****

**US JURY CONVICTS RUSSIAN MOB LEADERS ON MULTIPLE CHARGES**

Five defendants in a dramatic eight-week trial were convicted yesterday of a string of mafia-related criminal activities throughout the United States, including first-degree murder, extortion and computer crime.

Figureheads Johann ‘The German’ Schmidt and Swiss-born Arnim ‘The Scientist’ Zola, affiliated to a Russian crime syndicate known as Hydra, face 30-year-to-life sentences following their convictions in a Manhattan Federal court.

Key photographic evidence and witness testimony helped to confirm their participation in the murders of New York Police Commissioner Jasper Sitwell and café owner Abraham Erskine at Erskine’s café in Little Odessa in July. 

''The verdict reached today has resulted in dismantling the leadership of Hydra in the US,'' the United States Attorney Matthew Murdock said, in a statement issued by his office in Manhattan.

A source told this paper: “The Feds found out Sitwell was working with Hydra, so they leaned on him to inform on them. He shoulda known they’d find out.”

Locals confirm that Schmidt and Zola, along with a third associate absent from this trial, were regulars at café Glavnaya. Erskine seems to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time – a fatal mistake.

The prosecution team presented scores of witnesses, informers, an undercover agent, more than 100 secretly taped conversations and hundreds of surveillance photographs as evidence to help secure the convictions.

After dismissing the jury, the judge revoked the bail of the three henchmen. She ruled that all of them must be held for sentencing because they ''pose a danger to the community.''

''Nothing stops them,'' the judge said, noting the likely reach of the criminal organisation. She added that they had continued their criminal activities ''even in jail,” and that “Despite today’s convictions it is impossible to determine the true extent of Hydra’s influence in our country.''

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr


	10. Bucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's back.

**Haiti, 2016**

Opening his eyes the morning after his confession, Steve braces himself for the familiar morning dread. Instead he feels so light that he has a sense of looking down on himself, lying on his back in bed, staring straight upwards. The tousled mop of red hair on the pillow next to him makes him smile. He feels a tremendous rush of gratitude for not having to wake up alone, for once.

His mind rewinds the previous evening in slow-motion and scattered thoughts shuffle themselves back into a logical sequence. He took little Toussaint to the children’s tent. He saw Bucky. He saw _Bucky_. Bucky clearly wasn’t in good shape, and had turned him away, refused his help. The shit hit the fan at Shield HQ. He broke down. He told his friends _everything_.

His head is a mess, but he feels strangely unbothered, as if he’s moved a step away from the constant stress he had lived with for ten years. He’s relinquishing responsibility for the first time in his memory, and it’s easy, because it’s for Bucky’s sake. 

He opens the bedroom curtains to broad daylight, causing Natasha to raise her head grumpily and squint at him.

“Morning,” she croaks. “Hey, how’d you sleep?”

Steve thinks about this. “I slept… all night.” He realises, deeply impressed. “Wow, I actually feel… weirdly refreshed.”

Nat slumps back onto the pillow. “S’not that weird, Buchanan,” her muffled voice remarks. “Consecutive hours of sleep do wonders for your wellbeing.”

Steve picks up his phone instinctively and starts flicking through emails.

“Jesus,” he mutters. “Looks as though Oscalie handled the media, but the supply chain is still fucked.”

“Put it down,” Natasha says sternly, sitting up. “You’re off the job.”

“I feel fine now, though…”

“STEVE. Stop. Good leaders delegate, you know.”

Steve folds his arms and tries to look defiant.

“What are you gonna do now?” She asks.

“Fury will probably want me to go home,” Steve muses. “But… I gotta try and talk to Bucky again. I can’t leave without….”

“I know,” says Natasha. “Hey, maybe he’ll call you or something.”

“Maybe.”

Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll make it easy for Steve to talk to him, or maybe Steve will move heaven and earth to hear his voice again.

*

Steve can approach the hotel breakfast buffet with purpose, confidently piling a plate with a random combination of eggs, muffins, dried fruit and yoghurt, but beyond the coffee urn he’s at a loss as to how to tackle the day ahead. 

Unwilling to repeat the scene at Bucky’s hotel, he heads instead to the Shield field office to see whether he can hand his work over to the colleagues who will be picking it up. He shuffles around aimlessly for an hour or so, forcing himself to stay out of email discussions.

Eventually he exhausts all credible distractions, and his thoughts land, as always, on Bucky. What the hell was going on with him? Why had he ended up working for Alexander Pierce, and what was he doing trying to set up incriminating pictures? That really wasn’t Bucky’s style. He hadn’t seemed at all like himself though, on the brief occasions that Steve had encountered him in the past 24 hours. There was a weariness to him. A fearfulness, perhaps. A far cry from the cheerful, cheeky, energetic boy he remembered.

He’s standing with his back to the door and scooping up some paperwork, when the sound of a nervous cough behind him makes the skin prickle on the back of his neck. He turns, inhales, swallows, and though his stomach drops, his mouth can’t help twitching into a surprised smile.

“You’re here!” He blusters.

Bucky just watches him, warily.

“I hoped I’d see you,” Steve carries on, filling the dead air between them.

“Hey,” comes Bucky’s hesitant response. Steve tingles at the soft, familiar sound of his voice.

“You’re leaving?” Bucky asks, nervously.

“No, no, I wasn’t gonna… my shift is over. I’m being relieved. I wasn’t gonna leave until…”

He’s speaking much too fast.

“Can I help you?” Bucky interrupts, starting to shuffle the nearest pile of paper in his hands.

“No, it’s OK, my colleagues will need most of this.”

“Oh, Ok, yeah, sure.” Bucky looks around the small office and fidgets.

Steve stares at him for a few moments before coming to his senses. “Ah, hey, you wanna sit? I can get you some water?”

“Oh! Yeah, that’d be great, thanks.”

Steve busies himself finding a bottle of water and Bucky accepts it with thanks. He sips and doesn’t say anything for a while. Underneath the worry in his stomach, Steve feels another kind of nerviness bubble up –tinged with excitement and possibility. He finds his voice again.

“It’s really good to see you, Bucky.” 

Bucky gives a tentative smile of his own.

“It’s nice to hear you call me that.”

It’s the first hint of genuine warmth Steve has received from his friend in ten years, and it reduces his insides to treacle. Looking at him now, Steve notes how the puppy fat is gone from Bucky’s face. He’s lean and muscular, like an adult. He stares, openly; can’t believe he’d forgotten how he used to steal glances at that impossible jawline, that dimpled chin, the unbearable shape of that mouth.

He’s peering out from under that ubiquitous cap again, but Steve can see his hair is longer, and he’s intrigued by it; wants to see how it flows, maybe touch it with his fingers. It feels as though he should be able to step forward and do that, touch Bucky and stand very close to him, like he used to. But Bucky’s eyes are bright and furtive, like a jittery animal; one false move and he could be gone forever.

Another beat of silence passes between them. Then Bucky’s lips move, and Steve registers his words on a delay.

“Sorry about the hotel,” Bucky’s murmuring. “You know, I, uh… I wasn’t expecting you, and I didn’t want Rollins to see you and figure out that we knew each other. That coulda made things a whole lot worse. He was pissed enough that I lost the pictures of you.”

“Oh! Oh, it’s OK. It’s fine,” comes Steve’s over-conciliatory response. “I shouldn’t have… I probably shocked you. I just wanted to talk.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

There’s a long silence while Steve casts around in his mind. As often as he’s pictured reuniting with Bucky, he now hasn’t a single clue where to start, how to acknowledge the fracturing of their relationship. In the end, it’s Bucky who makes the move.

“So…. How did…. I mean, I figured you testified, got moved away somewhere….”

“I wanted to talk to you so bad,” Steve cuts in. “They wouldn’t let me.” The last few days he hasn’t been far from tears, and he has to struggle now to keep back another outburst. “I’m so sorry. I… It was all my fault. Everything. I just wanted to talk to you…”

Bucky holds up his hands. “It wasn’t your fault, man.”

“I didn’t come back for you.”

“Honestly, I wouldn’t have known it if you did,” replies Bucky, in the soothing tone he once used to calm Steve down, back when the biggest danger they faced was Steve’s refusal to let bullies throw their weight around. 

He doesn’t know if Bucky’s admission helps him or not. “Are you OK?” he asks, anxiously.

“Me? Pffff… I got hurt pretty bad. There’s some stuff I’m still dealing with. But yeah. Look. I ain’t dead.”

Steve swallows hard. “I meant now,” he says, gently.

“Um, yeah…” Bucky swigs from his water bottle again. “I guess. Sorry. I was so shocked to see you, you can’t imagine…”

Steve lets out an awkward laugh. “Yeah, I know, it’s so weird.”

“I mean, you look… different.” Bucky glances down to the side when he says this, eyes widening.

“I thought I saw you,” Steve blurts out. “In the camp, a couple days ago. I really thought it was you. But… It had happened before. I’ve been looking for you.” 

He’s struggling to keep the desperation away from the surface, but he’s sure Bucky can see it, can see how starved he is. Can understand what he’s saying. Steve thinks he might see a similar need on the other man’s face.

Thankfully, Bucky keeps talking. “I wanna ask you where you live, now, but I dunno if you can…”

“London. I’m in London. It _sucks_.” Steve almost laughs.

“Can’t be that bad.”

“Nah. It’s OK.”

Another awkward pause in the conversation. Bucky smiles, but it looks a bit forced.

“Look at you!” He says, this time in a low voice. “You’re saving the world, just like I always knew you would.”

And that takes Steve back: _right_ back, vividly, to their conversations as teens about college courses and how they were going to make something of themselves. His heart stutters at the gulf between the intimacy they shared then and the awkward distance of now. They haven’t even touched yet. Not _properly_. Steve realises something for the first time.

“I’m lonely,” He blurts, and then starts a little at his admission. “I never….” 

_I never got over you. Never found anyone who could make me feel like you did. I never thought I’d see you again, didn’t think I deserved to. I never settled down, or felt at home. I never yearned for you any less,_ Steve doesn’t say.

Bucky stares, looking a little rosier. “Look, I was gonna say, we could get together later, if you want. I gotta get rid of this reporter dick I’m here with. There’s this dive bar in Port au Prince…”

“YES. Yeah, definitely. Tonight? Yeah, God, wow, that would be great, Bucky.” Relief washes through Steve’s system.

“I’ll, uh, write down the place.” He casts around for a post-it and a pen, scribbles the name of a bar and hands it to Steve. “It’s, like, a locals kinda deal. Not an expat place.” He’s right, Steve has never heard of it. “Eight o’clock?”

“GREAT. Yeah, I’ll see you there.”

Bucky gives a slight wave and a grimace that could be a smile, and disappears through the door.  
Steve stares after him, clutching the scrawled post-it in his hand, his body buzzing. 

 

**London, 2007**

When Steve arrived at University College London, he took the opportunity to relaunch himself completely. He joined the student LGBT society and bleached his hair, though he never quite felt that the look was truly his. At the creaky age of 19, he received his first-ever blowjob from a boy with pretty eyes and he squinted all the way through it, his mind in a Brooklyn tenement.

Most of the time he worked hard at his studies, and he worked out more days than not. He didn’t really cook, he didn’t draw, he didn’t get counselling, he didn’t make any friends that outlasted his university days, and he didn’t date anyone for more than a couple of months. He had brought very little with him, but he filled the apartment where he lived, alone, with books and pictures and music he’d enjoyed before everything happened. 

Whenever he missed his old life so acutely that he couldn’t keep moving forward, he called Peggy Carter, who was always happy to humour him when she wasn’t dealing with an issue of national importance.

There were some things he loved about the city; the Tate Modern, the energy and enthusiasm for grass-roots activism, the self-deprecating sense of humour; but equally, there were many things he couldn’t get his head around, or he just plain hated.

Whenever he crossed the river he thought of the Brooklyn Bridge. The British Museum made him crave the Met. All the British sports were boring and stupid. A lot of the food was kinda stodgy and gross, especially late at night, and although the city was wonderfully multicultural, an American accent could still get you funny looks in some places. People regularly advised him on which aspects of British life he just _had_ to sample, but these things often left him underwhelmed.

Always spurring him on was a burning, raging need to make a positive difference; to make everything he’d been through worthwhile. To dignify Bucky’s heroic act, and to make his own sacrifices meaningful. He landed an internship at Shield International at 21, straight after university, and after four months they offered him a job.

 

**Haiti, 2016**

It feels as though Steve’s last international conference call of his deployment will never end, and he barely contributes anyway. By the time he has driven too fast to his hotel he’s left with very little time to get ready for his rendez-vouz with Bucky. _Klib la sigòy_ , the post-it said.

He stares in despair at the crumpled mountain of cargo pants and T-shirts festering on his open case, and thinks of Natasha teasing him about his failure to make time to do laundry. It’s weird, he thinks, that he should want to dress up for Bucky, out here, after everything, but a part of him wants Bucky to see him as worthy of admiration. 

Catching his own eye in the bathroom mirror, he allows himself to feel for a while.

Steve is used to thinking of himself as ‘in love’ with Bucky. It’s a conclusion he came to long ago, before that night at the café, and nothing has happened since to change his mind, but now he wonders if this story is still true. Maybe, after the murders, after their separation, he had romanticised things. Put all that swirling emotion into a tragic lost love story, and used it as an excuse not to find himself a relationship. Seeing Bucky again, though, and perceiving his distress, expands the volume of his heart.

He stares at his own face, narrowing his blue eyes. He doesn’t even have many pictures of the way he used to look as a skinny, gawky teen, but he can remember the way he carried himself. All knees and elbows, but straight-backed, always trying to stand as tall as Bucky. He runs a hand over his upper arm, wondering whether he would have been so keen to get into fights back then if he’d been able to do any actual damage. These days he saves his strength more often.

Digging deep into the pile, he pulls out a pair of decent jeans and clean polo shirt. He lacks the time for a proper shower but he has a quick scrub at the sink, sprays himself with deodorant and stands gawping in the mirror, nervously tweaking at his hair. There’s no time to do anything about the ‘mission beard’ he’s sporting, but shaving it off make it too obvious that he was making a huge effort with his appearance.

He chides himself for even thinking about trying to look his best, when Bucky is clearly having a tough time. Just the thought of being there for him, though, makes Steve’s blood run hot.

He tugs on the polo shirt, having the good grace to feel slightly sheepish about the way its too-small sleeves cling to his biceps, and heads back out to the street. The bar Bucky mentioned is not far from his hotel, so he’s best off on foot.

The outlines of trees and buildings are dark against the night sky as he heads along the main road, half-jogging to try and outpace his nerves. Bucky had been so much warmer, earlier, when he appeared at the office, but Steve has no idea what he might find at the bar. He has to get it right.  
It’s only 8.07 when he crashes breathlessly through the doors of _Klib la sigòy_ but there he is, there’s Bucky Barnes, hunkered down in a booth, looking like salvation. He glances up from his phone, unsmiling, and raises a cautious hand in greeting; in the absence of his usual hat his dark hair frames his face, reaching down to his chin and falling down the back of his neck. Steve hides his involuntary gasp by smiling too widely, waving too enthusiastically.

“Hi,” he calls, heading through the mostly-empty bar. “Bucky! Hi!”

It’s completely dark outside and the lights in the bar are low, but Steve can make out colourful paintings on the walls and a few neon signs. There’s an incongruous potted palm in the middle of the room and most of the tables are empty for now. Soft instrumental music plays unobtrusively, and Steve almost feels he could dance to it.

Bucky slides out from between a rickety-looking wooden table and the worn red leather banquette of his booth and shuffles over to meet Steve at the bar, his face cast downward. His eyes track slowly up to Steve’s goofy face before flicking away again, and his voice, still pure Brooklyn and comfort, says “You made it.”

“Yeah! Yeah, of course. I’m really… it’s so good to see you.”

Steve physically aches to sweep Bucky up in his arms, but he’s so concerned about setting a foot wrong that he crosses his arms instead, and hunches his shoulders, still smiling.

There’s a silence while the barman regards them both, bemused. Bucky breaks it.

“So, d’you… wanna beer?”

Steve’s youth is flashing before his eyes. “You know…,” he replies, teasing; “What I’d actually really love is a quadruple vodka and warm coke.”

Bucky frowns at him for a beat, but then Steve can see the memory break over him and trickle down into his consciousness. A slow smile erupts, sending crinkles out to the corners of Bucky’s eyes, and he lets a tiny laugh out through his nose. “Hey,” he says. “HEY.”

Steve’s heart lurches.

Bucky turns to the bar. “ _De Prestige, tanpri, zanmi,_ ” he asks, holding up two fingers, and the barman nods.

“You speak Creole?” Steve asks, impressed.

Bucky shrugs. “You know. Essentials.”

“How did you know about this place?” Steve presses.

“I asked around, I guess,” is the reply.

“But you’ve been here, like, a few _days_.”

“Like I say, essentials.”

They walk back to the booth and sit facing each other. Steve raises his beer bottle and Bucky blinks for a second, before raising his own in response. Steve clinks the bottles together and takes a sip of his own, watching as Bucky glugs down half the bottle in one go. His hands are shaking slightly, Steve notices.

“So, you’re working as a photographer.” Steve offers, to begin. His enthusiastic tone is sincerely meant, but Bucky just scoffs, hollowly, and Steve realises with a twinge of panic that he’s said the wrong thing. 

“It’s not exactly what I planned,” he says, and Steve hates that he’s accidentally quashed the tentative warmth that had been blossoming between them. It makes him furious with regret. Of _course_ this would be a touchy subject.

Bucky used to be so hyped about photography. So passionate. Steve feels kind of heartbroken to see him lose that.

“You’re really good!” Steve pushes. “I looked at… I saw some of your other stuff. It was amazing.” 

Bucky snorts again. “They’ll never, like go anywhere,” he says. “They’re not what Pierce wants.”

“Couldn’t you start publishing them yourself?” Steve suggests. “You know, start a blog or something?”

“Maybe,” Bucky says, dully, in a tone that suggests it will never happen. He looks down at the table.  
Steve feels frustrated. He thought he was on a winning streak after Bucky smiled at his reference to their High School drinking escapades, but now he’s back at square one.

“So are you still in Brooklyn?” He asks.

“Yeah.” Says Bucky. “I got a little apartment on Nostrand. Flatbush, y’know? Shitty little place, but, hey. I got this Jamaican church across the street, it’s pretty wild on a Sunday. Mom is still in the same place, Becca comes and goes.”

“They OK?”

“Yeah, they’re good.” A pause. “Becca’s, like, a teacher now.”

“Wow, cool.” Steve nods. “Hey, is Mr Santini still running that store where you used to work?”

Bucky give and almost-smile. “Heh. Yeah. I still go in there sometimes when I go to see Mom. It’s nice.” 

Steve realises he is grinning like a fool, picturing the store, and Bucky’s Mom’s place, and the street where they lived, and the two of them slouching along the sidewalk sharing a bag of skittles. A small, answering smile forces itself onto Bucky’s face and he looks down again, as if trying to hide it.

“I miss it so much, Buck.”

“You can’t come back?”

“It’s… they don’t think it’s safe. I’m not supposed to contact you, either, for your safety.”

Bucky looks cynical at that. “Somehow I think I’ll be OK,” he says.

Steve’s not sure what to make of that, but he can see that Bucky’s bottle has been standing empty.

“Hey, you want another one? I’m gonna,” he says, getting to his feet, but the barman clocks him and holds up two fresh beers, questioningly. Steve gives him the thumbs up and the barman brings them over.

“Oh. Hey,” Bucky says, picking up his phone. “Do you mind if I… uh…” He holds up the phone between their faces, and Steve realises he’s asking for permission to take a picture. 

“Oh! Yeah! Yeah, of course!” He says, a over-eager, holding up his beer and affecting a cheesy grin for Bucky to take the shot. 

Bucky’s cheeks look pink, and he mutters “Just because I have trouble with, y’know, sometimes my short-term memory’s still not great.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yeah.”

“This probably doesn’t help,” Steve cocks an eyebrow and raises his beer. Bucky scoffs.

“I know. But I do it.” 

He takes another swig. “It’s better. I mean, it’s a lot better now, but sometimes I still forget things and it’s, just, really annoying?”

“I bet,” says Steve. He means to show empathy but instead he feels a surge of familiar guilt about his part in Bucky’s injuries. He feels the need to revisit the apology he half-offered earlier.

“Look,” he says. “I know you said it’s OK, but… I can’t… I wish I hadn’t put you in danger like that. I wish I hadn’t given you cause to get hurt.”

“Steve…”

“Let me say this, alright. I wish, God, I so wish I’d turned around and come back.”

“Don’t be…”

“And I wish I hadn’t had to leave. I wish I hadn’t left you, Bucky.”

Bucky meets his eyes properly for the first time that evening, and holds his gaze in silence for a moment.

“Do you know what I’m gonna say?” He asks.

“Uh, kinda, I guess. I mean it though.”

“I know you do,” Bucky says, taking another deep swig of his beer. “I never blamed you for any of it. You know that, don’t you, really?”

Steve realises he does know, that deep down he has always understood that there had been an inevitability to it all, and yeah, Bucky would never feel any anger towards him over it. He suddenly feels terribly self-indulgent, as if his guilt complex is actually a matter of ego.

“My memory of what actually happened’s not too good, and the Feds never told me that much about it, but… I know how it went down. You had to be noble, and I had to go along.”

Steve laughs, in spite of himself. “Yeah… yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

“We made a call with good intentions,” Bucky continues. “Shit happens. You should know that. Random crap happens to innocent people all the freakin’ time.”

Steve nods. He leans his head on his hand and stares at Bucky. Bucky, whom he came here to help, and who is, instead, giving him an absolution he has denied himself for years.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah. You have to let your actions…”

He tails off, seeing Bucky wince, and tries to change tack rapidly. “I tried to do something positive, after that. So here I am, with Shield.”

Bucky has been speaking in longer sentences, but Steve feels like he needs to be careful, like Bucky could shut down at any time, like the creaky old power generator back at the camp.

“You were gonna do that anyway,” he says. “Me, I… I dunno what else I might be doing.”

“Can you tell me what happened to you?” Steve asks, gently, in the voice he uses with people freshly traumatised or bereaved. “If you want. I mean… I’d love to know. If you’re in some kind of trouble…”  
Bucky looks up at him from under his eyebrows. Even when he’s glowering, there’s a heart-rending beauty to his face.

“Well, I guess you’re already risking your _life_ by talking to me, so…” he drawls, and Steve grins, because the idea makes him feel reckless, but there’s no fear underneath it, because he’s with Bucky now, and that means nothing can touch them.

“… I guess I can tell you how I became the sorry sonofabitch you see before you,” he finishes, quietly, with a defeated air that punctures the balloon in Steve’s chest.

He waves at the barman, holds up two fingers, and turns back to Bucky.

“So I heard they took you to Mount Sinai,” he says. 

And Bucky starts talking.


	11. Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky speaks! He's had a bit of a bad time of it.
> 
> I had to cut this chapter into two parts as the plot developments needed to breathe a bit. Please just bear with me until chapter 12, I promise I will make it worth your while!
> 
>    
> Huge thanks to Aliset for invaluable help and encouragement, and for reading this through for me.  
> Please do notify me of fuck-ups or glaring plot holes!

**Haiti, 2016**

“It’s patchy,” Says Bucky. “These are the things I remember, and some of the things I know from what Mom said. You gotta bear with me cos I… like, ramble quite a lot.

“So… I woke up in hospital, full of morphine, with a bandaged arm and a dull head. Mom and Becca were there, looking tired and terrified as hell, and it turned out I’d been out for three days. Shot in the arm by a bullet and hit my head hard enough that I needed fucking brain surgery for the bleeding.”

“BRAIN surgery?” Steve gasps, with belated concern, digesting the implications Bucky’s health as well as his finances.

Bucky nods, grimly. “Look, pal,” he says, with a tinge of softness, unconsciously hugging himself and kneading his own left bicep. “You’re not going to be able to freak out everything something bad happens in this story, OK? Because you’ll be freaking out a lot.”

Steve nods, feeling slightly sick.

“Alright,” Bucky continues.

“The cops were hanging around and ‘course everyone wanted to know what happened to me, but I had literally no clue. I couldn’t even remember what happened during that day, it was scary as fuck. I asked mom if you’d been around and she just kinda looked shifty and was all ‘not yet,’ but really she just hadn’t been able to reach you. She probably… she probably knew you were in trouble.

“Wait… you don’t remember that day at all?”

“Nah, it’s gone for good. That day, some stuff before. I struggled afterwards with short-term stuff, still do sometimes.”

Steve nods, biting back his concern so Bucky can keep talking.

“So the cops were really fuckin’ disappointed in me but I said I’d call them if I remembered anything. Then the docs were there tellin’ me I’d need to stay for a while, because of the brain thing, and I’d need physical therapy for the damage to my arm, and it hit me then that we couldn’t fuckin’ afford all this, I knew our shitty insurance wouldn’t go near it. 

“And then mom was all like ‘sshh baby we’ll find a way,’ so that night I was freaking the fuck out, thinking what the hell happened to me, and how the hell are we gonna pay for the hospital, and where the HELL is Steve? And it was very scary and confusing. I kept forgetting parts, and mom and me had to write things down so I didn’t freak out all the time.

“God, Bucky…”

Bucky waves his hand.

“I told you, it’s not your fault,” he says, firmly, making it clear he’s not going to repeat himself infinitely on this. My story, OK, hero boy?”

Steve’s monetarily taken aback, but then he’s filled with warmth at the realisation that Bucky knows him; Bucky knew him first. Bucky’s giving him a half-smile that rolls back a decade or more, and despite the grim tone of the story he’s telling, it makes Steve impossibly happy.

“Sorry,” he grins. “Please go on.”

“I lost my fuckin’ place now, punk.”

“You were just coming round in the hospital.”

“Oh yeah. So anyway, needless to say, it was gonna take me a long time to recover. Mom got some money from a public fund but it still neded up costing a lot more than we had, you know? Plus she insisted I get all this therapy to help me remember and get my arm working again. So, y’know. A lot of debt.

“Anyway I’m in the hospital, and apparently this FBI agent comes by. I don’t have a good memory of her but Mom tells me she already came the day after the murders, while I was under. She told me she talked to you, and you and I had witnessed a crime, and that I got hurt getting away, but since I didn’t remember it she didn’t feel the need to fill me in. She just left me a number to call in case my memory ever came back.”

“That was Peggy.”

“Peggy, huh? You guys on first-name terms?”

“Yeah… we’re actually pretty close, still.”

“Oh, you _are?_ ” says Bucky, with a hint of a smirk. Steve rolls his eyes good-naturedly.  
“Please. She’s more like my mom than anything.”

Bucky’s smirk falls again and Steve thinks that he, too, might be remembering Sarah, remembering the weight of her loss. Maybe reminding himself that Steve had been newly orphaned. He lets the moment hang, then resumes his tale.

“So, based on what little I knew, I figured out that you must have gone and testified. I couldn’t find my camera, so I assumed I gave it to you. When the case came to court it was obvious, when I saw Erskine’s name out there with Jasper Sitwell’s, but your name was never released, I guess because you were being protected, right? I mean, the story was so big you couldn’t miss it; Commissioner Sitwell and the Russians. But people get over stuff real quick, huh?”

“Yeah,” Steve nods. At the time it had felt like the world’s biggest news, but ten years on he had been surprised that both Natasha and Fury remembered Sitwell’s death.

“Even when I read about the murders I still couldn’t remember a goddamn thing,” Bucky goes on. “It was surreal. Kinda scary. I was having all kindsa trouble, you know. Confusion. Dizziness. I found it pretty hard to function. Needless to say, I didn’t go to fuckin’ college, like we were talkin’ about.

“So. I was just at home with ma, trying to get better and working at the store full time so I could give her a bit of dough. And then one day I walk into my place and ma’s got someone in the kitchen with her. And I clock this guy and fuck, I go cold and I wanna puke, but I don’t really know why. This is familiar feeling by now, not knowing why I feel a certain way. Whatever.

“My mom was all smiley, like ‘James, this is Mr Karpov…’” 

Steve jerks forward like he’s been slapped. “KARPOV! Peggy told me his name!” he hisses, animated with shock.

“You know who that is, right? I sure didn’t.”

Steve nods furiously. “He came to your _house?_ What did he want?” 

Bucky just looks at him ominously. “I’ll get to that,” he says, taking a swig.

“How’d he _find_ you?”

“Dunno. I figured he knew our faces from the café, I guess he started with the regulars… took him a few months, but he found me.”

Steve stares, feeling nervous energy rising again. There’s a tension in his muscles and he wants to hit something, but he forces himself to listen, because Bucky needs that.

“So Mom says ‘Here’s Mr Karpov, one of your regular customers from the store.’ And when she sees I’m frozen up she goes ‘As I told you, Mr Karpov, James has severe memory problems,’ and then to me she’s like, ‘Bucky honey, Mr Karpov says you were always kind and helpful, and he heard about your problems and wanted to do something nice for us.”

“So,” Bucky goes on, “I’m gaping like a dead fish, with all this foreboding rushing into my fucking head, and meanwhile this guy is talking away, saying ‘Hello James, I’ve been hearing about your troubles,’ with an accent like a Russian motherfucker. I remember it clear as day. And my mom is grinning and nodding at me, all encouraging and shit, and I feel like I’m gonna freak out.

“So my mom kinda steps away to do the dishes, and I’m desperately trying to remember this fucking guy, and then Karpov looks at me and says, all nice and polite, ‘I’m so glad I found you James, it wasn’t easy, but your mother and sister have been most welcoming.’ Then he goes ‘Do you remember me now? From the store?’ And like the dumb shit I am, I just stare back with my mouth all dry, and then with a totally deadpan face he turns slowly and looks at my mom’s back for a few seconds, and then looks back at me with this super menacing scary face on, and I’m COLD, cold to my bones. I got the fucking message, alright, so immediately I start shaking my head vigorously, and the guy smiles, like a damn snake or something.

Steve grips the edge of the table.

“He says ‘Oh that’s a shame. You’ll have to let me know if you do start to remember. Anyway son,’ he fucking calls me _son_ , ‘I hear you like photography? I might have a job for you. Pays a lot better than the store, and your mom certainly seems to think you could use the money.’”

Steve is aghast. “Jesus… what did he want?” He asks.

Bucky shrugs.

“This sinister man is laughing in my kitchen, talking about my family, and I have no fucking idea why I’m feeling so scared by him, but to be honest I’m scared a lot at this time. It’s not actually until years later that I finally work out who he is.”

“He’s a piece of shit,” mutters Steve.

“Anyway long story short, he says he can get me a job on the Brooklyn Journal as a photographer, and I should go see him at their offices. I’m still struck dumb so he leaves his number and sweeps outta there.”

“Well, I feel pretty uneasy about all this but my mom is so excited that I got this opportunity and she practically forces me to go over to the Brooklyn Journal the next day with some of my photos. I mean, things weren’t exactly looking good for my career before that, you know? Karpov introduces me to the editor, who is an unmitigated asshole by the name of Brock Rumlow, and then they say that my shots are really promising and offer me a job in-house paying, like, twice what I get at the store.”

“What the fuck?”

“I know, man. I walk out of there like ‘did that just happen?’ Little did I know right then why they wanted my ass right where they could see it.”

“Yeah, well, I had a feeling that this gig wasn’t gonna turn out so well for you.”

“You’re right about that, Steve.”

Bucky goes quiet.

They finish off another round of Prestiges.

*

Sensing Bucky needs a moment before continuing, Steve gets up to go to the bathroom and grab a couple more drinks. When he walks back to the table, Bucky is watching him with a wry expression.  
“So, you’re, like, twice the size,” He says, as Steve sits down, catching him completely by surprise. He flushes a little and looks down at himself. “What happened?” Bucky’s mouth curls slightly as he waves his new beer at Steve’s muscular torso, before taking a big swig.

“I was as tall as you by senior year!” Steve protests, and Bucky looks slightly surprised and puzzled. 

“I… weird, I don’t remember you getting taller,” he frowns. “But that doesn’t explain the fuckin’… Superman thing,” he says, indicating more precisely towards Steve’s chest. 

Steve looks down and is embarrassed to note the clear delineation of his pecs beneath his shirt, even though his wardrobe choice wasn’t completely un-deliberate.

“I joined a gym?” He says, awkwardly.

“Jesus, what kind of fuckin’ gyms they got in England?” Bucky wonders out loud, and Steve laughs. 

“I guess I went pretty hard,” he concedes. “I don’t really have a lot of hobbies. Or, like, friends.”  
Bucky looks confused. “But you used to love partying,” he says.

“That was you, Buck,” Steve replies, gently.

“Huh,” Bucky frowns, fidgeting with the label on his bottle of Prestige.

“So, I assume you’re all, like, settled down and shit? I bet… I bet you have a really cool girlfriend.”

“No, actually. I’ve tried dating, but it’s not easy in this business. But I, uh, I date guys too. Mostly, probably. I mean, it’s not like there are a lot…”

Bucky reels backwards, eyebrows raised. “No shit! You’re into… both?”

“Yeah. Well. Either.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.” Steve marvels at how straightforward it seems, now, to talk about sexuality. It’s years since he felt anything more than a frisson about mentioning it to new people; a world away from the clammy-palmed anxiety of his teens. Thank God some things have got better. 

“I was dating this guy from work a little while ago, but it didn’t really get anywhere,” he says.

“Oh.”

“You? You, uh, met anyone?”

“I mean… no, no, I haven’t. And it’s, uh, only guys, really. For me. Yeah.”

Bucky’s blushing, but Steve is, too. His memory shows him his hand on Bucky’s knee, before Bucky blanked out that whole day. Bucky’s arms around him in Sarah’s living room. A shared apartment that never was.

“Bucky Barnes!” The evening’s emotional rollercoaster hurtles into Steve’s stomach, producing a grin of woozy elation. “Do Daisy’s hot friends know this about you?”

Bucky actually giggles, and hides his face in his hands.

“Oh my God, don’t tell them!” He groans. “I’ll _never_ get a date for prom.”

*

“So how did you get from the Brooklyn Journal to… World Bullshit News content provider?”

Bucky sighs and leans back on the leather banquette for a long while, staring up at the ceiling. He’s not making eye contact, but Steve suddenly sees the hollowness of him, the anxious years he’s passed. Then Bucky levels his piercing eyes and starts to speak again.

“I’ll need another beer for this, buddy,” he says, and Steve makes the necessary sign to the barman.

“I start off taking pictures for local stories, and after a while Rumlow takes to sending me off into Manhattan, after celebrities. I don’t like doing that shit, but, you know, I can do it, I actually get pretty damn good at it. I tell myself it’s a stepping stone to the kind of jobs I want, and I’m earning enough to help ma with that huge fucking loan she took out for me, so I feel OK about it. I’m making a bit of progress with my memory stuff, the arm’s improving, all of that.

“I’m not going in to the office, really. I’m moving around a lot. Rumlow will tell me where to be and who to follow. I’m not real good at remembering names so pretty often he’ll just send me an address and a picture so I know who to snap. He’s set me up with a long lens and a laptop, so I just get the pictures and send them to him, I never really check to see how he’s used them.

“Rumlow’s always talking about how we need scandals, we need to expose people, we need stuff to make people click on our pages. He wants affairs, he wants drugs, he wants people up to no fuckin’ good, you know? At this point I’m not really comfortable with what I’m doing but he’s always telling me people in the public eye are asking for this, they shouldn’t do anything wrong if they don’t want to be caught and so on. I’m not proud but I go along, because I don’t know what the fuck else to do, but at the same time I’m not exactly telling my mother the details of my work, you know?

“And as you can imagine, old friend, it gets worse from there.”

Steve nods apprehensively.

“I’ve deliberately not been thinking about where my pictures are going. Sometimes I can’t even remember taking them. But the day Becca shows me a story on TMZ about ol’ Howard Stark holding hands with fucking Wanda Maximoff, I know I was the one that took the shot. The story is so horrible and I feel guilty as fuck, but still I don’t know what else to do with myself. I’m still not great with, like, taking care of my paperwork, and I won’t get such a good job anywhere else, if I quit it’s back to the store for no money and no life. I’m feeling pretty stuck and depressed but I keep doing it, God help me.

“It’s not just celebrities, either. The stuff I feel really gross about is the crappy pictures they have me take where they twist the meaning. Y’know, like, here? I’m supposed to get shots of crowds of Haitians so they can write a piece about how they’re all desperate to come to the US? Pierce just wants to make people hate foreigners, man.”

“He wants to get people to focus on what _they_ want, and fuck everyone else, is what he _wants_ ,” snarls Steve. “But why? He just… wants to feel powerful? Make money? Fuel his own ego?”

“I dunno, man,” says Bucky, shaking his head. “I’ll tell you this, though, he has a lot of shady shit going on.

“And it gets worse.” Bucky hesitates, and looks at Steve with trepidation. “This is where I’m trusting you with… whatever.” He waves his hand, clearly deciding that his trust in Steve isn’t even worth emphasising. It’s just there. Steve feels a warm pang, a terrible excitement about getting to the crux of the story. He can feel rescue mode poised to kick in.

Bucky speaks quietly but clearly. “The next thing that happens is that Rumlow calls me in to work on a special newsgathering project for him, and it turns out he has this way of hacking into cellphones and listening to the messages. 

“Oh, Bucky…”

“I know, man. This is obviously illegal shit. I told him no, I wasn’t going to do it, and if that meant I lost my job then so be it. Rumlow just nods at me with the condescending expression on his face, piece of shit that he is. Then later that day, he tells me I’m meeting with Alexander Pierce.”  
“What? Pierce was in on this? I mean, it doesn’t surprise me, but…”

“He never mentioned the phone hacking,” Bucky says, “But yeah. Course he was. That guy will do anything.

“So the next day I go over to Manhattan, and I’m nervous as all hell, going to Pierce’s private offices. It’s like the whole building is built to be intimidating, you know? I felt like such an asshole in that shiny fuckin’ lobby. 

“It was a scary day, as it turned out. I think I remembered it all pretty well cos it was, kinda, seared into my brain, but I wrote it down afterwards, too, as much as I could.

“Pierce keeps me waiting for, like, an hour, and then I get called in and there he is, backlit in front of this huge fuckin’ window, with his face all shadowy like a cartoon villain. This does nothing to calm my nerves.” Steve snorts a laugh through a mouthful of beer: gallows humour.

“So he keeps me standing there while he fiddles with his phone for, like, five more minutes, and then he looks up and smiles at me, all fake and sinister. He says ‘Hello James, thank you all of your good work at WorldNews to date. It has been excellent. I was very sorry to hear from Brock that you’re considering leaving us.’ He’s all calm and cold as fuck, and all I can do is nod like a stupid kid. So he carries on, ‘I hope you’ll reconsider and keep working for us.’ Then the door opens and fucking Karpov comes strolling in, and I have a terrible fucking feeling about all this.

“Karpov and Pierce _knew_ each other?”

“Oh, it gets _so_ much better, Steve. 

“Karpov sits down and smiles like a shark. I haven’t got a word in my head to say to these guys. Pierce starts talking again; ‘My friend Mr Karpov here, who was kind enough to bring you to the Journal in the first place, would be particularly sorry to lose you. He was so fond of you and your friend, Steve Rogers…

“The FUCK?” Steve sprays beer everywhere.

“Yeah. Yeah, that was my reaction. I was stunned, staring at this Karpov while he grins back, and I finally fucking realise who he must be. You got it, right?”

Steve is pale, nodding.

“The third guy from the café, that night when they whacked Erskine and Sitwell. The one they never caught. Hell, he could even be the fucking guy who _shot_ me.”

Bucky is breathing heavily now, tears coming to his eyes, and Steve wants to hug him but he doesn’t know how. Instead he comes up with a quiet “Oh my God.”

“Yeah.” Bucky’s voice is wavering now. “Yeah, so Pierce says your name, and Karpov comes up with ‘Steve isn’t in New York any more, is he? But some friends of mine saw him recently. They tell me he’s doing fine, for now.”

“That can’t be true. He doesn’t know where I am. That’s BULLSHIT.” Steve slams the table in rage, earning a sharp look from the barman.

“Maybe, Steve, but I had no way of knowing whether it was or not, and don’t forget, they all know I can’t remember that night. Do you think I was gonna chance it?” 

Steve shakes his head.

“That’s right. And they know it too. These two evil assholes, this mobster and this fuckin’ shameless media chief, in bed together for whatever reason. They just wanted to keep me close so I’d never talk, even if I did remember. Make me do their fucking dirty work, whatever. 

“I can see it now, Steve. I guess they thought that threatening me was a greater incentive than, y’know, _paying_ me real well. They were right, though; that was the only way I’d do what they wanted.”

His eyes are cast down to the surface of the table, and even in the dim light Steve can see how tired and resigned he looks.

“Bottom line: they wanted someone they could control.”

_TBC…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non-UK readers might be surprised and quite reasonably appalled to hear that the phone hacking is real. A shitty British tabloid called News of the World was exposed in the mid-2000s as having hacked into the voicemails of lots of celebrities, politicians, royals etc and listening to their messages. They even hacked the phone of a teenage girl who was missing, later found murdered, and deleted one of her messages, thereby giving false hope to her parents that she may be alive. All this was in the name of gossip for the paper. We had a huge enquiry and the paper folded, but very few people were properly punished and obviously Rupert Murdoch, owner of NewsCorp who published this paper, completely distanced himself. If you’re interested, look up News International phone hacking scandal. Shit is fucked beyond belief.
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/escapologistldn)


	12. The Prestige

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talkin', drinkin', angstin', and....

“Bottom line: they wanted someone they could control.”

Bucky winces as he says this and trails off, perhaps anticipating Steve’s reaction, and if so, he’s right. The idea of Bucky being threatened and manipulated fills Steve with ferocious anger. All his muscles pull tight with pent-up frustration but he forces himself to stay still, says the first non-violent thing that comes into his head. 

“Did you try calling the cops?” 

Bucky rolls his eyes incredulously. “Thank you so much for that, Mr _Obvious_.

“I said I’d call the cops, and Pierce was straight back with ‘And tell them what?’ so I said ‘I’ll tell them you threatened me.’ And that greasy motherfucker just smiled back and said ‘I did no such thing. And if I had, do you think your word, as a man with serious memory problems who is feeling aggrieved after being _fired_ , will trump mine?’ I swear this guy is laughing at me, you know what I mean? And then, and THEN, fucking Karpov weighs in with ‘Now you are worrying me, James. I’m concerned. Do I need to get someone to keep an eye on your mother?’”

Steve slams his fist down on the table, sending four empty beer bottles crashing onto the floor. The barman starts, rushing over with an irritated expression to clear up the glass, then returns a minute later with two fresh beers. Steve has to appreciate the man’s professionalism.

“Of course, I’m fucking terrified now,” continues Bucky, gripping his new beer. “This snake was in my _house_. Don’t forget, I’m easily confused and it’s worse when I’m upset. As far as I know they wanna off you, anyway, because of what you did, and they’re only holding back so’s they can make me do shit for them. So Pierce asks me if I’m gonna work with Rumlow and I just say yes, and I get the fuck outta there.” 

His voice starts to wobble and crack, and the sound charges Steve’s veins with primal rage.

“But surely the cops could protect your mom?” he demands in a harsh whisper, wild-eyed. “If you could speak to Peggy, she’d make sure I was safe?”

“Maybe, Steve, but look, I was scared out of my mind,” Bucky replies, pleadingly, as if willing Steve to understand him. “I was convinced no-one would believe me, all I had was my word that they threatened me, and you know we didn’t get pictures of Karpov that night. I can’t even remember seeing him. YOU know how powerful Pierce is. How hard it would be to accuse him. The cops ain’t gonna buy this from me, and even if they do, there’s no evidence, too much that can go wrong, and then I’m dead, or my mom, or Becca, or _you_ …”

Bucky’s eyes grow watery and Steve’s anger dissipates, all of a sudden, under a wave of compassion. He gets up and moves around the table to slide in next to his old friend, put an arm around him, and Bucky leans in, taking a shuddering breath. 

“But Bucky, look. I’m OK.”

“NNNGH” Bucky snarls, leaning forward and dropping his face into his hands. He wipes his nose on a napkin.

“I dunno if they really would have killed us all, but look, it was enough for me to know they might. They could. So I… I figured if I didn’t do this shit for Rumlow someone would, and at least this way I have a job, I have an income, and no-one actually fucking dies.

“Jesus. Bucky…”

Steve sits back for a moment, trying to make sense of all this. He strokes gentle circles on Bucky’s back, as Natasha had done for him so recently.

“But why did they want _you_? Can’t someone else do the dirty work?” he thinks out loud. 

Unfortunately this adds to Bucky’s upset.

“I TOLD you,” Bucky snaps, “They needed someone who would do anything they wanted, and I did it. I fucking did it,” he half-sobs out the words, shoulders shaking. “So many times. I got into the voicemails of celebrities, people in big court cases, I even got one from the Royal fucking family of England. Then they stick it in one of Pierce’s papers or websites, or God knows what else he has going on. I hated myself so, so much. I mean, these people were getting ruined, humiliated, destroyed, and they thought it was their friends or their family that ratted them out.”

He pauses, briefly overcome, and Steve wants to comfort him, but all he can say is “Fuck.” Bucky steadies himself to carry on.

“Some of it’s just to reel people in, ya know? They _love_ the scandal. It’s like, give us your exclusive coming out story, or spill the beans about your affair, or your health, or, y’know, we’re gonna publish it anyway. It ain’t libel if it’s true.

His voice is shaky, but Steve doesn’t want to stop him before he’s got it all out. He rubs Bucky’s back continuously as he talks.

“And the thing is… Bucky pauses here, with an ominous look, and Steve’s not sure he can take anything heavier than the story he’s already heard this evening. It turns out he has to, though.

“Not everything I get is for the news.”.

 

Steve looks at him dumbly and sees the shame on his face before he speaks.

“Some of it is, like… heavy shit. Y’know. Private information about politicians and backroom deals, do you understand? I’m talking serious blackmail-level stuff. I’m not sure it’s even Pierce who wants it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if fuckin’ Karpov has a use for it, know what I’m saying?”

“Oh my God,” Steve murmurs, struggling to take this in. “What do you mean, like…?”

Bucky chokes, shaking his head. “Once I’m neck deep in the phone hacking shit, the next they got me doing whatever the fuck they want. And I mean, it’s dirty. Hidden cameras. Stings. Honey traps. I got dirt on some seriously important people, Steve. I’m talking about _Senators_ here. _Congressmen_.”

Bucky’s looking Steve right in the eye now, animated and emotional, struggling to keep his voice down.

“The shit I’m into, Steve! I got their voicemails, emails too. Photographic evidence of whatever they’re… sometimes whoever they’re doin’… And you KNOW that shit ain’t for the papers. It’s all for Karpov, and whatever fuckin’ corrupt shit he’s got going on.”

“Shit, Bucky…”

Steve can’t hide his shock. He stares, open-mouthed, while he tries to mentally comprehend Bucky’s situation.

“Shit is right,” Bucky laughs, miserably.

“But why… what’s the deal? With the two of them,” Steve asks, his mind racing.

“I don’t know what they got going on, but these two go waaay back,” answers Bucky. “It’s like, Pierce is legit, he can easily spread whatever poison ideas he wants, but Karpov, man… that guy is dirty beyond _belief_. He’s into some _seriously_ heavy shit. I guess they help each other out somehow.

“So there I am, doing whatever the hell the ask me to do, without asking any questions. But the thing that kills me…” he pauses. “The reason I’m… do you know why I’m telling you all this, Steve?” 

He turns his face directly towards Steve, open, unflinching and pained. Steve shakes his head, sure that his own sadness must be obvious in his expression.

Bucky holds his gaze, trying to keep his voice steady.

“The whole time I kept thinking – and this is so stupid – I thought…. that _you_ would be so fucking disappointed in me.”

Bucky stops there, trying and failing to stifle heaving sobs. 

“Oh, Bucky…” Steve replies immediately, pulling Bucky into an almighty hug because he can’t find the right words to comfort him.

As Bucky quakes in his arms, his own body is pulsing with rage against the men who have crushed Bucky like this, for so long, but it’s tempered by sadness, a tender, protective feeling that makes him want to hold back his full fury. He tries coach mode.

“Listen, man… It’s not your fault. Doesn’t sound like you had much of a choice.”

“You wouldn’t have done it,” Bucky wails, his face a raw mess.

“I… I wasn’t in your situation. We all do what we have to do,” Steve assures him, but Bucky doesn’t seem comforted.

“You know why I’m out here, don’t you? You know what kind of shots he wanted? Of _you_?” He snivels, miserably.

“But you didn’t do it. You brought me the camera.”

“Yeah… I couldn’t do it, after I realised it was you. Pierce was pissed off when I told him I lost the fuckin’ thing, I tellya. Shoulda just said I didn’t get any decent shots. I panicked. Stupid fuckin’ head.” 

He hits himself on his temple and Steve’s gut lurches. He grabs hold of Bucky’s hand and holds it tight. Bucky seems to be calming a little.

“Hey, d’you want the camera back?” Steve asks, gently. “I can delete the worst shots of me and you could still have something to show him…”

Bucky looks at him thoughtfully.

“Keep it,” he says. “I already told them I lost it. Rumlow will get me new one on insurance.”

Steve doesn’t know what to make of that, but he nods, and changes tack.

“Do you know why Pierce wanted to get at me?” he asks. “Is it because I yelled at him at a stupid dinner?”

Bucky shakes his head. “That’d do it, man. Guy can’t take anyone criticising him. But you prob’ly did him a favour, cos he makes a point of trash talking things that actually help people.”

Steve shakes his head.

“I think he wants people to mistrust anything that looks too much like progress. His papers, websites, his fuckin’ ridiculous TV channel… he wants hate and fear. He wants to undermine our… fuckin’… _democracy. Jeeeeez_ -us. I mean, I already thought the guy was a criminal, but now… I can’t believe what they’ve done to you. What they’re doing.”

His voice gets louder and Bucky seems to recognise the red mist which has been hovering over them for some time.

“Steve…” he begins, like a warning.

“Look, Bucky, I can help you. I can get you out. We’ve gotta handle this. We’ve got to stop this,” Steve urges. “Peggy is _dying_ to get Karpov. She can make sure nobody gets hurt…”

“HOW is she gonna get him, though?” Bucky asks, desperately. “I don’t have any evidence on him. Do you think my word is gonna be enough? What about Pierce? No, no.” He’s shaking his head now, almost laughing. “Of COURSE you wanna stop them, Steve. But these aren’t the kind of guys you can stop. You can’t help me with this.”

“Bucky, listen!” Steve implores urgently, pulling Bucky round by both shoulders to face him. “Lemme talk to her, at least. Who knows what else she’s got? Maybe there’s…”

“NO! I said _no_ , Steve. It won’t work.”

Steve shakes him, then, tries to shake sense into him. “But…”

“Doing what they want is the only way I can be sure you and mom and Becca are safe.”  
“If we can take these guys down…”

“I CAN’T TAKE THAT RISK!” Bucky snaps at him, eyes wide and wild. “The minute they knew I ratted on them… I… can’t risk you, Steve. It can’t be my fault. Wh.. what if they killed you? It’s bad enough I can’t see you, but at least now I know you’re…”

“They won’t find…”

“Karpov has people _everywhere_ , Steve! You don’t know what he can do!”

“Come on, Buck!” Steve pleads. “You used to care about doing the right thing!”

“No, YOU cared about doing the right thing. I cared about YOU!”

Steve stares at him, freezes Bucky in his grip, and Bucky stares back with shining eyes. “Sorry,” he says, bitterly, after a minute. “I’ve disappointed you again, huh?” Bucky shrugs Steve’s hands away and goes back to his drink.

Steve lets out a breath and crumples with it. 

He has finally come to the painful realisation that for Bucky, doing the right thing is to be eternally compromised, to toil without thanks or recognition. Without honour. To be undeserving of those things, in his own mind.

“I could never be disappointed in you. I don’t care what you’ve done. You could _kill_ someone and I wouldn’t care, I’d still…”

Steve pauses, not entirely sure what he’s trying to say.

“I’d still wanna be your friend, Bucky,” he finishes, lamely.

They sit side by side, looking straight ahead. On the opposite wall hangs a flag with an image embroidered in beads and sequins, showing two figures staring outwards. Steve assumes they are a pair of _loas_ : the elemental spirits of Haitian voudou. Both of them are shirtless and male, their brown skin warm against a stormy background of black, grey and bright streaks of white. One carries a weapon that resembles a jagged bolt of lightning, while the other’s long hair and loose garments billow around him, as if he’s standing by a fan.

Two banners unfurl at their feet and Steve thinks he can make their names out: _Sobo, Bade_.

Bucky sighs.

“Me too,” he mutters. “I kinda wish we could do that.”

Steve turns abruptly to look at him. “We can’t?”

Bucky gives him a sad look.

“You know we can’t. Steve, you’re in witness protection for a reason.”

Too much flashes through Steve, too intensely. He wants to _insist_ , to _demand_ , to _refuse_ to let Bucky tell him they can’t talk again. But he understands, too, that to do so would be to insult the sacrifices Bucky has made. This doesn’t dull the acute stab of pain in his heart.

“Pierce doesn’t know you’re _you_ ,” Bucky points out. “That Steve from Shield who pisses him off so much is Steve fuckin’ Rogers who nailed Karpov’s buddies. He doesn’t know you and me go back. And I’m sure Karpov doesn’t either. He wouldn’t recognise you now, big fuckin’ muscles all over you like that.” Bucky prods his bicep, trying to lift the mood.

“I’d like to introduce that asshole to my new muscles,” he says, flexing slightly. Bucky laughs outright, relieved at the shift in tone.

“Same old fucking Rogers.”

Steve smiles at him, allows himself to feel the grounding happiness of that connection to someone that _knows_ him, and, what’s more, knew him as a stupid kid, and a dramatic teen. He takes another slug of beer.

“I dunno, Buck… It’s just… I thought I helped to wipe out Hydra. I gave up my _life_ , such as it was. I gave up Brooklyn, and you, and I thought it was worth it. For the greater good, you know? Now it feels like it was for nothing. Guys like Pierce getting away with everything they want.”

“Steve…”

“You think I’m gonna be OK with letting him carry on? Do you think I can go away and leave you in this situation?”

“I’m asking you to,” Bucky firmly insists. “I’m OK. I want you to keep yourself _safe_. I’ve been scared for ten fuckin’ years, please don’t give me any more reason to be scared.”

“And if _I’m_ scared for _you_?”

“I’m fine. I can do my job. You have much more important things to do than worry about me.”

“No I don’t” says Steve, honestly.

“Shall we just… have a drink together?” Bucky says, and Steve laughs.

“Another one? Sure.”

They clink bottles clumsily and Bucky falls heavily against Steve’s side, wriggling until Steve’s arm comes back around him. He leans his head on Steve’s shoulder and they sit, lost in hazy, boozy thought, until their last beers are dry.

*

The bar doesn’t get any busier all night, and the barman shows signs of wanting to close at the hour nears midnight. He puts on some incongruous-sounding 60s folk music as he starts to spray down the tables and the bar. Steve and Bucky rouse themselves from a woozy silence and stagger to the door, leaning against each other in a sloppy embrace.

“Walk you back to your hotel?” Steve asks, mildly enough, but Bucky giggles anyway.

“I ain’t that kind of boy,” he flirts. 

“Yeah, right,” Steve grins back, shamelessly.

Bucky shakes his head. “You’d better not,” he says. “Like I say, I can’t let Rollins catch me with you. I’d be in seriously deep shit.”

“To the end of the road then?”

“OK.”

They walk in silence, falling easily into step, just the same as they always did, bumping arms, brushing hands. The world around them has taken on an animated quality, as if it’s not quite real, the scenery dragging in Steve’s vision when he turns his head. He feels fuzzy, and more than anything else, he wants to touch Bucky. He rest a hand on Bucky’s back as they walk, and Bucky shuffles closer to him, leaning in, pressing against Steve’s side.

It’s only a couple of minutes before Bucky signals he’s heading off up a hill on his own.  
“So. This is goodnight, then,” Steve says.

“Yeah.” Bucky has his hands in his pockets. He glances around, worrying his bottom lip with this front teeth, shuffling from foot to foot. He looks so beautiful, Steve never wants to forget how he looks.

“Hey, gimme your phone a sec?”

“What? OK.” Bucky hands it over. Steve swiftly opens up the camera, hits the selfie button and grabs Bucky with one arm, holding the camera up. “Say ‘Giants rule!’” He says, hitting the button a few times, and feels Bucky squirm next to him, bringing up his hands to try and hide his smile. He hands the phone back without checking the pictures, because now that he has one arm wrapped around Bucky, a rush of such knee-trembling warmth is spreading through him that he has to wrap the other around him too.

Bucky is easily drawn in. His arms come up around Steve’s waist, and he presses his face hard into Steve’s neck. _He’s actually a couple of inches shorter than me now_ , Steve notices, with surprise. _And he’s… wow, he’s really shivering_.

“OH my God, you are SO much bigger,” Bucky mumbles. “I mean, fuck, sorry, I didn’t…”

Steve laughs, and his own voice doesn’t sound as steady as he’d expected.

“It’s so good to see you again,” He murmurs. “You have no idea. I’ve missed you, this whole time.”

It’s still warm outside but Steve feels particles colliding around them, building up a static charge and raising the hairs on his neck. He’s not sure _what’s_ in the air, really. Voudou spirits, or Prestige biers, or the wretchedness of the hurricane and the grief of little Toussiant, or the savage miracle of finding _Bucky_ , here of all places, the heartbreak of not being able to help him.

He rubs Bucky’s back gently, like he did when Bucky was talking, holds onto him, and Bucky makes no attempt to pull away.

Steve can feel the warmth of Bucky’s breath on the skin of his shoulder, the tickle of Bucky’s hair against his cheek. He can’t help but turn his head down, and Bucky tilts upwards, which means their cheeks end up pressed together. Steve’s breaths are shuddering in his lungs.

Bucky’s hands are stroking at the bottom of his back, back and forth, back and forth, and they’re swaying, a little bit, rocking from foot to foot. Bucky releases a loud sigh.

“Are you… are you gonna take your hands off me so I can go to bed?” he asks over Steve’s shoulder, in a wobbly voice that belies his attempted joke. And Steve tries. God bless him, he actually tries to let go.

The road is spinning and Steve is fuzzy with booze, full of longing, body and mind. 

“I… can’t.”

Bucky laughs. “What?”

“I can’t take my hands off you.”

Bucky laughs again, awkwardly, and keeps holding on. Steve feels as though the two of them are in slow motion. Their pressed cheeks start to drift, slowly slipping until the very corners of their mouths brush, shocking and thrilling and portentous, like the first raindrop to fall from a black sky. Steve gasps, sucks in a shaky breath. An old song is making its way around his brain. Bucky arm has travelled right up his back, his hand has a solid grip on Steve’s neck. 

_If I just hold on to him forever_ , Steve thinks, _I can keep him safe_.

His eyes are closed but his mouth falls slightly open, his face nuzzling searchingly against Bucky’s. Lips brush again, and a desperate excitement flashes through Steve, reflected in Bucky’s shudder. 

Noses bump. Foreheads find each other. Steve keeps breathing, licks his lower lip. He opens his eyes briefly and sees that Bucky’s are closed, right in front of him. Somehow the fingers of one hand have found their way to Bucky’s skin, just above his waistband; the fingertips of the other seem to be resting lightly under his jaw, feeling his pulse.

Then someone tips their chin slightly, and at long last their lips meet fully, with neither man pretending it was an accident. The lightning that strikes Steve’s chest leaves him reeling, makes his heart and stomach switch places.

The drink and the Haitian night lend everything a surreal, dreamlike quality, but the feel of Bucky’s tongue sliding softly against his own is vivid and clear. They bleed at the edges, merge at the mouth, mould to each other again. It feels like Steve has NEVER felt: terrifyingly intimate and overwhelmingly _right_. Beautiful and perfect and right.

Haiti and the camp are miles away, and Alexander Pierce is nothing at all; Steve is soaring high above them. The only thing here and now is the rumbling under their skin, the rolling of their tongues, like thunder. A groundswell of elation surges up into Steve’s chest and keeps swelling and swelling, but it never bursts; it just spreads happiness through his body. And then…

Bucky whispers a moan like soft rain. 

That gentle sound is enough to break Steve’s feeble control. He has drunk far too much to maintain any decency or inhibition about the blatant hardness of his cock, but maybe he _wants_ Bucky to know, and anyway his hips are moving by themselves, and yeah, it certainly feels like Bucky knows and strongly agrees. Bucky’s tongue turns rough as his hands travel downwards to grab Steve’s ass, and Steve’s blood races, making him dizzy with excitement and desire.

Then abruptly, Bucky pulls away, leaving Steve panting and bereft. He opens his eyes and even dilated against the dark, they’re startlingly blue and pleading. He takes a breath before leaning in again to press his closed lips to Steve’s in a single kiss, confirming. But Steve chases back for another, and then another, and soon they’re _really_ kissing again, trying desperately to imprint each other before the chance is lost for good.

Steve’s heart is still leaping about in his ribcage. He is seriously considering pulling Bucky to the dusty grass at the roadside when the kiss slows. 

They get gentler, as if silently agreeing to make a memory that includes tenderness as well as almighty lust. Even while their mouths are still joined, though, Steve can feel the panic of impending heartbreak coming over him. When Bucky breaks the kiss again, Steve presses their foreheads hard together, desperately clinging to the moment.

“Keep in touch,” he implores. “ _Please_.”

“I can’t,” Bucky answers.

The silence is paralysing. Steve feels like he’s freezing in place from the feet up.

“I’m glad I saw you,” Bucky whispers.

“Yeah,” Steve whispers back, tears needling his eyes.

Bucky touches his face with his fingertips. “Let me go,” he says, firmly.

Steve drops his arms and Bucky gives him a small, tight smile. As he turns away Steve grabs him by the hand and brings it up to his lips, and Bucky turns back and gasps, his eyes swimming. “Bucky…” he whispers, knowing he can’t force him to stay.

Bucky gives him a final look, that could be either sadness or apology, before ducking his head and slowly walking away. 

“You’ve got my number…” Steve calls, but Bucky doesn’t look back. 

“Send me the… picture?” He mumbles to himself as he stands there, helplessly, and watches, as Bucky follows the line of streetlights up the hill to the Hotel, and Pierce, and WorldNews, and Brooklyn, without him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I wish I’d had the time to find out more about Haitian voudou. The two figures on the flag in the bar are voudou spirits called _loas_. Sobo, the thunder and lightning spirit apparently looks like a ‘handsome soldier’, while Bade is his inseparable friend and wind spirit. Together they can invoke thunderstorms. 
> 
> 2\. I was never quite convinced about how the Evil Organisation HYDRA got so many people to secretly join them in CA:TWS, to the extent that they would be willing to kill Captain America etc.
> 
> In the Agents of SHIELD TV show there were three main explanations for loyalty to HYDRA: brainwashing, fanaticism / hereditary membership of an ancient cult, or having your loved ones kidnapped and kept in a huge scary prison. 
> 
> My friend Aliset has pointed out that they probably worked like a cult, using need-to-know and targeting pliable angry young men, telling them they can do ‘good.’ But even then, the feat of secrecy and the scale of the operation is pretty staggering.
> 
> I mean, I guess we’re supposed to believe that Alexander Pierce is a highly persuasive zealot who radicalises SHIELD employees and various people of influence into his / HYDRA’s ideology. But surely, in real life, nobody could actually convince a large number of people to subscribe to such transparently hateful, oppressive ideas? Against their own best interest? Even in the name of some mythical ‘improved security’ for the lucky ones? COULD THEY?
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/escapologistldn)


	13. Fury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After his revelatory meeting with Bucky, Steve and his friends reach some disturbing revelations about Hydra and Alexander Pierce. Steve gets his game face on.
> 
> *STAY TUNED FOR IMMINENT STUCKY*
> 
> Huge thanks to Aliset, who was incredibly helpful in knocking this chapter into shape.

**Haiti, 2016**

Before he even opens his eyes, Steve tastes the dry bitterness in his mouth and feels the dull tackiness of his tongue. He blindly flails around for water and, finding none, groans in self-pity as a throbbing headache begins to pulse behind his eyeballs.

He lets the pain wash over him for a few seconds, crumpling his face into the pillow as he registers washed-out limbs and a nauseous stomach. Then he braces for the familiar onslaught of morning anxiety, and reaches into his fractured memory for an explanation for this bleak hangover, the likes of which he hasn’t suffered since his student days in London.

But then an image, more sensory than visual, comes trickling into his mind and banishes all trace of discomfort. 

He’s kissing Bucky Barnes.

And Bucky’s kissing back, all impossibly soft lips and passionate tongue, rough stubble and beery breath, wandering hands and unconcealed want. The kind of kiss Steve had barely dared to imagine, even when he’d thought about doing far more. Bucky’s moans and murmurs are real, present in his ears.

Steve nuzzles at the tender skin on the inside of his own bicep, trying to inhabit the fantasy that has become an actual memory. _Oh God_ , he’d held Bucky by the hips, and…

And Bucky had walked away. He had said they couldn’t be in contact because Steve could be in danger, because…

Alexander Pierce. _Karpov_.

Steve sits bolt upright, instantly supercharged with rage. He remembers Bucky’s story now, and his sadness and fear. Last night Steve had known better than to push Bucky too far, but today he is _not_ going to allow this evil to persist.

Bucky told him to keep his distance, but Steve can’t see how that could be possible. Not after that kiss. Granted, as kisses go, that one could probably last him for… ever? But Steve really does not think it should have to.

Hangover all but forgotten, Steve drains a bottle of water. He scrubs himself roughly in the shower, gargles with mouthwash and pulls on some clean clothes, then stands dizzily in the middle of his hotel room, staring at the chaotic mess he’s made of it. 

He sits down hard on the edge of his bed for a few seconds, then slowly sets about folding his clothes and setting everything straight. He even makes the bed, which is something he hasn’t done in months. Soon the room looks clean and orderly, and it’s still only 7.30am.

At a loss for what to do next, now that he has been dismissed by both Shield and Bucky, he wanders his way over to the field office to see if Sam is around. He feels the need of his fellow early-riser’s company, his constant patience and capacity to listen.

Sure enough, Sam is there, hunched over a file of paperwork. He looks up and greets Steve with a broad grin.

“How are you feeling, chief?” he asks, then squints. “You’re looking a bit rough, actually, mate. Worried about the polls?”

Steve looks at him, puzzled.

“Opinion polls? Election three weeks away? Your homeland on a knife edge?”

Steve throws his hands up in a shrug and shakes his head. He hasn’t even _thought_ about the US election since he first spotted Bucky in the camp. It wasn’t as if there was really anything to worry about, anyway. Sam closes the file.

“Whatcha get up to last night? Left your hotel _and_ ignored my text? This is out of character, Steven.”

Steve appreciates for the thousandth time how Sam manages to veil his concern with gentle humour. And also the way Sam has concerns. He sits down facing Sam across the desk.

“Sorry, man. I, uh, heard from Bucky.”

“Oh yeah? You go see him?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh huh? And how did it go? Better than the last time you saw him?”

“Much better,” Steve assures him. “Honestly, it was _great_ to talk to him.”

“Wicked!” Sam sounds delighted. And then, with a little more caution, “Emotional reunion?”

Steve exhales through pursed lips, unsure of where to begin. He opts for a summary.

“We drank a lot of beer. He told me about his awful life.” 

Sam frowns. “Did he explain why he’s been dicking you about the past couple of days?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s… he’s in a very difficult situation. Real tough. He, uh, wanted me gone, actually.”

Sam nods, neutrally. “Yeah? That must have been…”

Steve looks at him like he doesn’t know the half of it. “And then we, uh… kissed. A lot,” he confesses.  
Sam’s face explodes in shock.

“What, _really_?”

Steve nods, letting a glimpse of happiness show through his smile.

“It’s like _that_ , is it?” Sam presses, raising a mischievous eyebrow.

“I guess. I mean, yeah. It always was, for me,” Steve replies, glad, in a way, to share this fundamental fact.

Sam, meanwhile, looks as though he’s catching up with Steve’s emotional whirlwind.

“Fuck, Steve… mate….”

“He said we couldn’t keep in touch.” 

Sam narrows his eyes and fixes Steve with them, thinking before he speaks. 

“Well, it sounds to me like he doesn’t want you diving head first into this shitstorm without a parachute, my friend.”

Steve gives a sad smirk, then leans forward and rubs his face with both hands. “I guess. It’s driving me completely nuts. He’s scared of that asshole Pierce.”

“Yeah, you said he mentioned Pierce, the other night.” Sam says. “What the hell is happening there?”

Steve sighs again, deeply, and stares out of the container’s rear window, through which Bucky had watched him a couple of nights before. The grass out there looks so vibrantly green now. The storm clouds have cleared, leaving nothing but bright blue sky, and if he focuses only on the landscape framed by the window he can hardly believe he’s looking at the same island where homes and schools and businesses and services have been reduced to rubble and matchsticks.

Sam starts to shift his posture into pep-talk mode, but before he can say anything, the door flies open and Natasha strides in, accompanied by Nick Fury. Steve is instantly reminded that Shield’s task continues today, just the same as it did yesterday, despite his own world turning upside down; that they have a maternity hospital to salvage and a queue of obstacles to clear. He notices that while he still feels the same anxious energy as always, the same itch under his skin to _do_ something, he has already let go completely of the disaster zone. Natasha will do it. All of his energy, all of his reckless motivation, is focused on Bucky now.

Fury looks from Sam to Steve, before saying, pointedly, “You’re off the job, Buchanan.”

“Yeah, I know, I know Nick, I just… I saw Bucky last night.”

“OH?” Natasha immediately focuses her attention on him. “And how is he?”

Steve notices the faintest trace of a cocked eyebrow and the twitch of a smile on her face as she stares straight over his shoulder. He jerks his head around fast enough to catch Sam making a kissy face behind him. Giving Sam a look, he turns back to Natasha.

“He’s… not great, Nat. He’s in a pretty bad situation. This thing with Alexander Pierce and WorldNews, it’s…”

“What? What thing with Pierce?” Fury asks, and Steve detects deep foreboding in his voice, the likes of which he has only heard in times of extreme crisis. “What are you getting into, Steve?”

“Look,” Steve replies, waving a hand at them. “I don’t wanna… you guys must be busy today.”

Fury sighs, running a hand over his bald head, and sinks into a chair, motioning for Natasha to do the same.

“You guys have coffee here?” 

Steve nods.

“You’d better tell me what the hell’s going on, Steve. And please note that when I hired you, I _seriously_ underestimated your capacity for drama.”

*

As briefly as he can, Steve summarises for his friends what he knows now about Bucky’s side of their ten-year interregnum. He explains the impact of his brain injury and memory problems, the unexpected promise of a career better than Bucky could have hoped for, and then the slow descent into ever more sordid jobs, under the manipulation of Pierce himself. Nick Fury looks steely and tense when he describes Bucky’s encounter with Pierce.

“So you’re saying that Alexander Pierce directly threatened your friend?” Natasha asks, calm but clearly outraged.

“Hmph. It’s a bit complicated. I mean, he was in a fragile mental state at the time. Still is, a little. And the real threatening was done by Pierce’s friend, the Hydra gangster. You know, the one I didn’t put away. Bucky called him Karpov.”

“Wait… _Karpov_? This is _Vasily Karpov_?” Nick Fury cuts in.

His tone gives Steve pause. Glancing up, he’s taken aback by his boss’s expression of shock, his one eye wide and beady.

“Uh, yeah, I guess. He just said Karpov.”

“What the fuck…” Fury gets to his feet and begins to pace up and down, highly agitated.

“Why, have you heard of him?” Steve asks. “Did you hear me say he was one of the _killers I saw_?”

“This is insane,” Fury mutters, rubbing his hands together.

“Nick. What is it.”

The CEO peers at Steve from beneath a furrowed brow.

“I’ve met him. I’ve met Karpov, more than once.”

“What? WHEN?” Now it’s Steve’s turn to be rocked to his core.

“Years ago. Decades, even. But I’ve thought about that guy one hell of a lot.”

Fury stops pacing, refills his coffee and sits down again.

“Do we still have some time, Natasha?”

Natasha nods. “I built in an hour’s contingency to allow for your jet lag.”

Fury smiles, as if to say, ‘figures’. Then he sits forward, interlacing his fingers, and looks each of them in the face with a serious expression.

“OK. This may shock you all a little bit,” he says, “But Alexander Pierce and I have some history.”

The three look at him expectantly, so he continues.

“Back in college – this is NYU in the 1970s – he and I were friends. We even roomed together for a while.”

“Oh!” says Sam, a little too quickly, trying to feign surprise.

“No _way_ ,” Steve chips in.

“Gosh, how unexpected,” says Natasha, not even bothering to feign sincerity.

Fury shoots her a sharp look before continuing.

“Yeah, we were tight back in the day. Believe it or not, we both had a keen interest in solving the world’s problems. We used to drink beer and talk a lot of bullshit about how we would make it all better.”

The three colleagues smile in recognition. Who hadn’t put the world to rights in their youth? Steve cringed slightly when he recalled the black and white terms in which he’d viewed things only a few years previously.

“We were pretty much of the same mind, I thought. We talked about poverty, and equality, and politics and whatnot. As you know, it’s easy to have the answers when it’s not your ass in the hot seat.”

Steve nods. He’d been astounded when Sam had enlightened him about Fury’s past with Pierce, unable to imagine how the two of them had ever been friends. But people change.

“Now. Vasily Karpov was an older student. Russian, obviously. Pierce got friendly with him somehow and he introduced me, but I never really warmed to the guy. Had a kinda sinister vibe about him. But Pierce talked about him all the damn time. How Karpov was a _visionary_ , and so on. Do you see where I’m goin’ with this?”

Steve glances around the room. Sam is standing with his arms folded, watching Fury intently, but Natasha looks grim, her face whitewashed, her mouth set and her eyes bright with intensity.

“So one time, when we were close to graduating, we’d been drinking, and he turned to me and said, ‘Nick, tell me this. Do you really, _honestly_ believe… that humanity can be trusted to do the right thing?’”

Natasha inhales audibly.

“What did you say?” she asks.

“I said I didn’t think anybody was fit to judge what the right thing was by themselves. That was the point of democracy.”

“And?”

“Well, he didn’t like that. He started talking about Karpov, saying that ultimately people’s narrow self-interested blinded them to the big picture. So I asked him what his answer was. And he said…”

“What.” 

Natasha is staring, unflinchingly. Steve is slightly chilled by her tone.

“He said that he believed people flourished when they had _clear parameters_. When people ‘knew their place’.” He spits, with real venom. It makes Steve shudder to imagine, for the first time, really, what the world had been like when Nick Fury was a young man.

“What did you say to that, chief?” asks Sam.

“This was the _1970s_ , Wilson. At college I was the only black man in the room 90% of the time. The fuck you think I said to that?”

The room is silent, respecting Fury’s anger. Steve feels slightly queasy, in the same way that he had when he encountered Pierce at the Humanitarian Media Awards in London. _People change, alright_ , he thinks. _All it takes is a persuasive idea, packaged the right way. All you need is a willing ear_.

The CEO paces up and down for a minute before speaking again.

“Fuckin’ Karpov. I knew then that Pierce’s thinking was all fucked up. We didn’t talk a lot more after that, and after we graduated, we went our separate ways. You might know that Pierce was a reporter for a while, but he worked his way up fast at the Brooklyn Journal, and in some fucked up twist of fate, he somehow found the…” he tails off, a look of shock and then grim comprehension crossing his face. “…Money to buy the paper,” he concludes. “ _Damn_.”

Steve, Sam and Natasha nod in dumb realisation, familiar with the story of Pierce’s ascent from humble origins to media supremo.

“The rest is history. But to hear, now that Karpov and Pierce are still tight, I have to ask, what the fuck? And then you tell me, Steve, that Karpov was involved in a _murder_? An NYPD Commissioner, no less? Again I ask you. What the _fuck_.”

Fury’s words hang heavy in the air as the others digest his words. Steve is shaking his head in astonishment, while Natasha is ashen-faced and steely. Sam is the one who speaks.

“Shit,” he says. “You guys, he’s… they’re… I mean, Hydra? They’re not just mobsters, are they?”

He’s met with heavy looks.

“I’m just saying…” he continues, “It’s ideological, isn’t it? It’s like, a _movement_ …”

Natasha cuts him off.

“It’s a fucking cult,” she snaps.

Steve doesn’t miss how sharply Nick Fury eyes her.

“I’ve heard of this kind of thing before,” she mutters. “Promising young students targeted by groups hoping to… create allies. Get them before they even begin their brilliant careers. Get them onside, then make sure they find their way to real power.”

The pieces fall into place before Steve’s eyes. Alexander Pierce, all this time in thrall to an organisation whose true power and influence was still unclear. An organisation whose purpose was blatantly sinister. An organisation which he’d hoped, in his youthful naiveté, to destroy with a heroic sacrifice, but which, he now realised, was never going to go down that easily.

“Pierce has been in their pocket all along,” he says, slowly. Then, almost hysterically, he begins to laugh. “God!” comes his humourless chuckle.

“Why are you laughing?” asks Natasha, sharply.

“Well, you gotta hand it to them. Hydra. They backed the right horse when they chose Pierce!”

“His rise to power makes a lot more sense,” observes Sam.

Natasha doesn’t say anything.

“Have you _seen_ his goddamn TV station? The man tells people what to think. Can’t win an election without him,” says Fury, bitterly.

“Nick…” Steve starts.

Fury looks uncharacteristically shaken by the conversation. “I have had a very low opinion of Alexander Pierce for decades now,” he says, slowly. “Nothing about this surprises me.”

Steve starts to get to his feet. “I need to talk to Peggy,” he garbles, mouth outrunning his thoughts. “As soon as possible. Nick, would you… go on the record? About Pierce and Karpov?”

Nick Fury regards him with an air of calm, although the look in his eye belies the furious anger beneath.

“Bet your ass I will.”

The moment is charged, and Steve can feel himself rise up in a rush of righteousness. Then Natasha speaks.

“Steve, is that what you want?”

“What?”

“To expose Pierce? Is that what you would do? If you had the evidence?”

Steve is puzzled. There’s a seriousness to her question that makes him think he needs to answer carefully and truthfully.

“I want to tear that bastard down for what he’s done to Bucky, which I suspect is the very least of his dealings, yeah,” he admits. “But I think Karpov is the one who had made the direct threats to him. Wish we could’ve nailed him ten years ago.”

“You can still put him at that murder scene,” Natasha says, slowly. “You saw him, right?”  
“Yes! Yeah, I’d recognise him if I saw him again. I’m sure of it.”

“But what if it put Bucky in the firing line? Or you? We know what these people are capable of,” she says, her face deadly serious. “Look at what you have. Two accounts which add up to circumstantial evidence, one of which is from someone with a brain injury. I’m not doubting your friend,” she says hastily, responding to Steve’s indignant face, “but you know what a hard time Bucky would have in court. And it doesn’t even sound like he’s willing to speak out.”

“Pierce will have the world’s best and most shameless lawyers, you know this,” points out Sam.

“Without harder evidence, this will count for nothing,” she continues, a wild edge to her voice. “You need more _information_. And if the wrong people found out….” 

“Pierce is too smart to leave evidence of anything criminal,” says Sam. “It would be hard to link him to the phone hacking thing. And you KNOW he and Karpov ain’t exchanging lovey-dovey emails.”

“Maybe Bucky has something…” Steve wonders.

He feels paralysed, stuck in a loop. He’s always fearless about doing what he thinks is right, but what happens when that puts Bucky in danger? He has to speak to Bucky first. Convince him to tell Peggy his side of the story.

“Talk to your FBI friend,” says Fury. “Then, I want you to get on a plane back to London. You need some downtime, Buchanan. We’ll talk in a couple of days, when I get back.”

Steve nods. Natasha casts her eyes around the room, still thinking hard. Sam sits back in his chair, exhales, interlaces his fingers on top of his head. “Only you could kick up more drama on a mission than Hurricane Matthew,” he says.

*

In the wake of the morning’s revelations it seems unbelievable that life can go on as before, but, as Steve notes with pride, his team is used to forging ahead while circumstances change dramatically around them. Sam hugs him hard, with promises of support, before heading off to the medical tent, and Natasha and Fury leave soon afterwards to visit a Shield team the Port-au-Prince headquarters. Finding himself alone in the office, Steve dials Agent Peggy Carter.

Peggy is professional, businesslike and extremely thrilled to hear Steve’s new information.

“Go home, Steve,” she says, a faint tremor in her voice betraying her excitement. “We’ll take full statements from you and Nick Fury in London. You need to stay low. I don’t need to tell you this is a very big accusation you’re making.”

“Are you gonna talk to Bucky too?” Steve asks.

“I think we’ll have to,” she replies. “These accounts are pretty thin, but I’ll take anything that gets us closer to nailing Karpov. Alexander Pierce, however, is a different kettle of fish altogether.”

“Can I be there? With Bucky? Can I at least warn him?” Steve almost pleads.

“You’re much safer in London.” Peggy replies. “Go there, and call him if you have to.”

“But… I don’t have his number,” Steve mumbles in reply. As he hangs up, he feels a rush of resentment towards Peggy. As long as he’s known her she’s been right about things; she has always known what to do. She knows what Bucky means to Steve. So why does she now think, with Bucky in trouble and in need of careful handling, that Steve can be ordered home without even _talking_ to him?

Truth be told, he’s used to this. To going his own way. Bucky might have asked not to be contacted, but Steve has a very good reason to try one more time.

*

Steve heads back to his hotel to pack. The first thing he does when he arrives is to call the Hotel Oloffson.

“Room 12, James Barnes, please?”

“Yes sir… Oh, I’m sorry. James Barnes checked out this morning.”

The receptionist’s polite voice whacks Steve in the stomach and disseminates cold dread up into his chest.

“Checked… out?” Steve repeats, after a stunned pause.

“Yes, he took the airport transfer. He has left Haiti,” comes the reply. Steve could swear she’s mocking him.

“OK, thank you,” he says, numbly, although he’s already hung up the phone. This is something he really hadn’t prepared for. Upset as he was by Bucky’s insistence that they part ways, he had assumed he’d be able to track his friend down again, somehow, once the emotions of the night had settled down.

Now he feels real fear, as if something very important has been within his grasp but has been snatched away.

He stares for a moment at his luggage, all packed up and ready to return to London. Then he rubs the back of his neck and remembers Bucky’s fingers there, soft fingertips and blunt nails scratching at his hairline. 

It’s quiet in the hotel, but there’s a voice inside Steve’s head; one that he feels vibrating in his bones as much as in his ears. It rises up into his consciousness and rolls around his head. 

“ _I got a little apartment on Nostrand. Flatbush, y’know?_ ”

Steve pays attention to the voice, hoping it will say more.

“ _I got this Jamaican church across the street, it’s pretty wild on a Sunday…_ ”

He listens for a bit longer, but there’s nothing else. It’s enough. 

Outside his hotel room window, a sunbeam reflects brightly off a solar panel on a rooftop. Steve’s hazy thoughts snap into sharp focus.

*

In the early afternoon when he knows no-one will be around, Steve heads back to the Shield office at the relief camp. Glancing around, he finds the door unlocked and nobody there, as planned. He sits down at the computer and pulls out his credit card.

The paralysis of fear has gone now, as Steve allows himself to be invigorated by righteous anger, and with it, the thrill of taking action. He can’t let Bucky get away again, and now he has real enemies in his sights.

Alexander Pierce. _Karpov_. The Russian was there when they killed Erskine; hell, maybe he even pulled the trigger. But for what he has done to Bucky… he had better hope the FBI reach him before Steve does. 

But more than that, well. Bucky Barnes will not be the puppet of these power-fixated extremists for a single day longer.

The internet connection at the Shield office is notoriously poor and Steve wants to punch his laptop as little as thirty seconds after firing it up. Instead he fiddles with his phone in agitation while waiting an age for the right page to load. The entire process is torturous, but eventually he hits the final button with a grin. Just as he’s waiting for his documents to print, Natasha rushes in, phone clutched tightly in her hand, and jumps violently when she sees him.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, gathering herself with lightning speed. “I heard you receive a direct order to high-tail it back to London.” She’s stern but there’s a hint of amusement to her voice.

“I know, I’m just booking my flight,” Steve answers, defiantly.

“To LONDON?”

Steve stares back with a blank face, then slowly raises one eyebrow. He snatches the paper that emerges from the printer just a second before Natasha can. She shakes her head.

“What are YOU doing in here, anyway?” He challenges her back. “You’re supposed to be with Oscalie in Jérémie this afternoon.”

“I’m… calling in a favour,” she answers, in the cryptic style of hers that doesn’t bear close examination.

She eyeballs him, and Steve realises they’re in a standoff. He decides to shoot first.

“Bucky’s gone,” he says. “He left this morning.”

Natasha regards him for another long moment.

“Did you speak to your FBI Agent yet?” she asks.

“Yep, this morning. She wants anything we’ve got on Karpov. Pierce is obviously a lot harder to pin down.”

“I just want to remind you,” she says, slowly, “That the FBI, a highly dangerous criminal organisation, an extremely powerful media mogul, Nick Fury, and Bucky himself, have all expressed a wish for you to stay out of New York.”

A smile breaks slowly across Steve’s face, growing into a broad grin as he returns her stare.

“Can’t you just… hold on a couple of days? See if anything develops?” Natasha asks, and Steve hears a note of anxiety in her voice that is so unusual that it would give him pause in any other circumstances.

“You know I can’t,” he replies.

“I really, really think you should.”

“Why?” He’s genuinely puzzles, as if she should know that the reasons she already gave are not going to scratch the surface of his resolve.

She looks at him, grim-faced, for a minute, then rolls her eyes dramatically.

“OK I KNOW I can’t stop you. Just please promise me you’ll tell Agent Carter the minute you land. Give her the chance to keep your stupid ass safe. And be CAREFUL, Steve. Believe it or not, there are a few crazy souls in this world who give a shit about you.”

He smiles, and she smiles back. “I’ll be fine,” he insists.

Then he grabs her face in both hands, kisses her cheek, and runs out of the door.

*

Despite the fact that he’s had to wait in Haiti overnight for a flight, Steve doesn’t contact Peggy until he’s at the baggage claim at JFK, and even then he takes the coward’s way out and texts her.

 **Steve Buchanan:** Peggy, I’m in New York.

As expected she calls back within a minute. Steve doesn’t answer, and doesn’t listen to what’s clearly a howler of a voicemail.

 **Peggy Carter:** STEVE. What are you doing here? Please call me ASAP.

 **Steve Buchanan:** It’s fine, Peg. I’m going to see Bucky in Brooklyn. I’ll call you tomorrow.

 **Peggy Carter:** DON’T DO THIS. CALL ME RIGHT NOW STEVEN BUCHANAN OR I’LL COME AND GET YOU.

 **Steve Buchanan:** I need to talk to Bucky. He has dirt on Pierce and Karpov but he doesn’t want to share it. I have to see him before we can talk to you.

 **Peggy Carter:** You’re my responsibility. You’re being reckless.

 **Steve Buchanan:** This is my choice, Peggy. We’ll speak tomorrow, I promise.

He stopped replying after that.

*

After retrieving his suitcase, Steve emerges from the arrivals lounge of JFK airport and stands on a New York sidewalk for the first time in ten years. It’s early afternoon in mid-October: the sun is bright and bleary, enough that he could do with a pair of shades, but the air is autumnal and crisp. Just beginning to bite. Steve shivers with excitement. He’s lived and given and learnt for ten years, but today he feels _alive_.

He stands still for a moment, watching the sea of yellow taxis, and closes his eyes to savour the sound of an irate bus driver yelling at a local tour guide. Their accents stir something up in him that makes him suddenly, unexpectedly, want to cry.

 _I’m in Queens_ , he thinks. Then opens his eyes.

“What the hell am I doing in fuckin’ _Queens_?” He mumbles to himself, grinning.

He sticks out his arm for a cab and is overjoyed to hear the driver’s old-school New York tones.

“Where ya goin’, pal?”

“Brooklyn, please. Flatbush.” Steve answers, unable to pull the huge smile from his face. The driver clocks it and smiles back.

“You visitin’? Or comin’ home?” he asks.

“Both,” is Steve’s initial reply. Then, “Coming home.”

“Well, welcome back, buddy,” winks the cabbie, as he pulls off onto Belt Parkway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STAY WITH ME PEEPS – NEXT CHAPTER IS 100% STUCKY
> 
> Anyone who has read or seen ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ (which I have not) or has a detailed knowledge of British / Soviet history will know about the Cambridge Spy Ring. In the 1930s, Soviet agents managed to recruit at least five Cambridge University students to their cause. They went on to become diplomats or join the British secret service, and proceeded to pass information to the Soviets throughout WW2 and beyond. They weren’t exposed for a couple of decades and it’s still not really known how many people were involved. Some of them were interrogated by MI5, others defected to the Soviet Union.
> 
> I was thinking about them when I was pondering how someone like Alexander Pierce, who is apparently (or was once) high-minded and idealistic, could have got involved with Hydra. I also thought about the trend in the 1960s for left-wing intellectuals to romanticise communism, even when its ideals were obviously rotting in the mouths of murderous egotists; people like Malcolm Caldwell, the wide-eyed Marxist who supported Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, only to get murdered in ‘mysterious circumstances’ in 1978.
> 
> Also let’s not forget that Rupert Murdoch was apparently a socialist in his youth, before greed and ambition altered his politics quite dramatically.
> 
> I’m not sure how well it comes across, but I was trying to find that mixture of persuasive ideology and flawed ego that drives so many evil men.
> 
> TL:DR – Hydra got to Pierce early on and swayed him with their persuasive but ultimately fascistic ideology. Since then Pierce has been a bad seed and a shameless Hydra lapdog, wielding a huge amount of power over public opinion via his trashy news empire. Nick Fury is ashamed to have known him.


	14. Brooklyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In direct opposition to the wishes of everyone, Steve goes to New York to look for Bucky. SPOILER: he finds him.
> 
> The Stucky is dedicated to anyone who is actually reading and enjoying my story, and most especially to the lovely shespeaks, who has been kind enough to leave me nice comments. It really means unbelievably much.

**Brooklyn, 2016**

Steve was 18 when he left New York for what he thought was the last time, but now, just glimpsing the familiar store franchises and road signs of his home city, he feels like a little kid again. 

“Nostrand is one long-ass street,” the driver had pointed out, and Steve had replied, “Well, we better start at the bottom then.”

So they followed the Parkway right down to Sheepshead Bay and then headed north up Nostrand Avenue, with Steve staring unblinkingly from one side of the street to the other, desperately trying to spot a Jamaican church which faced an apartment block.

“HERE,” he had yelled, suddenly, when they got as far as Flatbush, making the driver jump. “Here is fine!” He had leapt out and jiggled the trunk until the driver opened it for him to retrieve his luggage, and then thrust a generous handful of cash towards his bemused chauffeur, pausing only for a second to frown at the wad of paper he was wielding.

“Hey, they make the money smaller?” he’d wondered out loud.

The driver shook his head and laughed. “I don’t think so, pal. You been gone a while, huh?”

Steve had grinned and pressed the cash into the driver’s hand, bringing his own up to grip it firmly, as if to shake it. “I’m back now,” he’d beamed, and raised his hand in thanks and farewell before jogging across the street, bags and all, to the main entrance of a large and ugly apartment block.

 

Now he stands outside the door, staring at the rows of anonymous buzzers, hoping one of them will somehow announce itself as belonging to Bucky Barnes. The sky is clouding over and Steve’s jacket is not strictly enough for a New York autumn, but he chooses instead to focus on the rays of sun shining through breaks in the clouds. Belatedly he realises he has a choice between ringing every single one of them in turn, or waiting outside in the chilly air for Bucky to come out, or come home.

“Ya comin’ in?”

Steve spins around at the sound of a broad New York accent, high-pitched and slightly wavery. A white-haired woman in huge sunglasses, an animal-print fur coat and a tartan shopping basket on wheels is holding the door for him.

“Uh, I was just going to wait for my friend.”

“Whatcha say?” she frowns, leaning towards him. Steve notices her hearing aids and speaks more slowly.

“I’m waiting for my friend. James Barnes.”

“OH, you’re a friend of _James’s_. Come in here, it’s so cold outside.” Steve wants to chuckle at her cartoonish accent. It’s like Cyndi Lauper in her dotage, or Betty Boop after 60 years of whisky and cigarettes.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Steve smiles, making the woman shoo at him and smile back. “Do you know him?”

“He’s a sweet boy,” she says. “He got my groceries for me just yesterday. He lives next door ta me, in number one-oh-seven. Right at the end of the hall.” She indicates the elevator. “He’ll be back soon. He always turns up when ya don’t expect him.”

Steve gives her a grateful salute, which makes her giggle, and turns instead to the stairs. He knows he should probably ring the bell instead, but now he’s inside, he just wants to go and knock on Bucky’s door.

Bucky’s door. It’s painted pale, glossy blue, the numbers 1-0-7 screwed into the wood just above the spyhole. The last time Steve was in this position Bucky slammed the door shut in his face. But that was three whole days ago, before Steve’s world shifted on its axis.

When he does knock, he’s surprised to feel the door give slightly under the rap of his knuckles. He waits a moment, but there’s no answer straight away. His eyes, tracking over the door, register a wedge of folded cardboard at the bottom, keeping it shut. When he looks at the lock, he notices twisted metal stump of a broken key protruding slightly from it.

Bucky’s apartment’s not locked. It doesn’t even lock.

Steve looks at his watch, which shows that it’s two in the afternoon. It’s only a four-hour flight from Haiti, so it’s not likely that Bucky’s sleeping off jet lag. He’s probably out. The neighbour said he’d be back soon, so Steve should just wait here in the hall.

Steve shouldn’t be in this _city_ , let alone this building. Let alone this _apartment_.

Bucky told him to stay away, not to keep in touch.

Bucky also kissed him like he wanted nothing of the sort.

This is _Bucky_. They used to have _keys_ to each other’s places, for crying out loud. Bucky used to call Sarah ‘Mom’. If the situation was reversed, Bucky could walk into Steve’s place whenever the hell he wanted. He could have it. He could eat all Steve’s food, read his books, wear his clothes, fuck about on his laptop. Use his passwords. Buy a plant and put it in the corner. Steve would _want_ …

The train of thought fires him up in a strange way. _What am I doing here, really?_ He gives the door an experimental shove, and it swings open in front of him.

There’s no point, now, really, in hanging about in the hall, so Steve steps slowly over the threshold and pushes the door to behind him.

The first thing he notices is that the walls are covered in photos – a few high-quality prints, and some just printed straight onto paper. Landscapes. Buildings. A few people. A mish-mash of memories and art. Steve recognises a portrait of Bucky’s sister Becca with Winifred, their mom, laughing together in a flower garden. An array of beautiful shots of the city. Steve starts when his eye is drawn by another familiar-looking figure, and he realises he’s staring at a candid shot of a presidential candidate, resting her head on her hand and smiling somewhere to the side of the camera. Steve feels it should be on the cover of Time instead of on Bucky’s wall. 

On the adjacent wall is a large black-and-white image of the funfair at Coney Island, closed for the winter, and another mournful-looking picture of the view when facing the other way, standing on the boardwalk, looking out at the Lower Bay. A plastic palm tree, a lone seagull, a few pieces of trash drifting on the grey sand, and in the foreground an old lady sitting on a bench with her knitting in a bag, gazing away from the camera towards the ocean. Steve thinks again that Bucky has genuine talent; technical, artistic and opportunistic.

Steve is riveted when he catches a glimpse of a picture of the young Bucky himself, which can’t have been taken long after the crime and their separation. Bucky’s looking in the mirror, holding a camera in one hand and flexing the other bicep like a super hero, obviously demonstrating his recovery from the gunshot that damaged his left arm, but his face doesn’t look victorious. He stares straight ahead, and the only thing Steve can perceive in his eyes is bewilderment.

Steve resets and takes in the room. The door he walked through opens straight onto a small living room, and he can see a small galley kitchen off to one side, as well as two closed doors which must denote a bathroom and bedroom. His eyes run over a spindly-legged table with a couple of chairs, a worn couch and a small TV. On the table is a battered old Mac trailing loose cables, and a few pieces of what Steve assumes is photographic equipment. 

On the wall next to the front door is a large, wipe-clean planner, of the kind you might find in an office, with a fine black marker pen stuck next to it. The planner has space to fill in four weeks’ worth of appointments. Steve feels a twinge of comprehension and pathos; this must be how Bucky makes sure of keeping track. He can see other paper notes stuck around the apartment – external memory devices.

Thinking he’ll check to see where Bucky is at the moment, Steve approaches the wall planner. His stomach lurches again when he immediately recognises Bucky’s handwriting. He hasn’t seen it since they sat in class together, but now the sight of Bucky’s familiar script, in careful capitals, makes Steve grin dopily. The letters spell out appointments, diary notes, anything Bucky needs to jog his memory. GOT PAID, says one. LAUNDRY, says another.

Steve scans across to today’s date.

12.00: NEIGHBORS TOGETHER.

It takes Steve a couple of seconds to work out why that phrase is familiar: it’s the soup kitchen. The same one where he met Abraham Erskine. It almost makes Steve want to cry, the realisation that Bucky is still volunteering there after all these years.

Almost without meaning to, he follows the planner back a few days, looking for Bucky’s notes about the Haiti assignment. His eyes settle on the date of their evening together at the bar two days ago, so seismic in his mind, and this time tears form for real. In Bucky’s neat little capitals, the entry for that day reads:

KISSED STEVE

And then, after it, Bucky has drawn a tiny, black heart.

Steve is choked.

Despite alcohol and memory problems, Bucky remembers how that evening ended. Even more than that, he wants to remember. Wants to make sure the kiss they shared isn’t one of the things that falls through the cracks in his prefrontal cortex.

Somewhat overcome, he suddenly feels a stab of guilt. This is so personal. He shouldn’t be here. It’s one thing to walk into Bucky’s apartment, but Steve now understands that to do so is to walk into Bucky’s _mind_. It’s all here, laid out, and it wasn’t even locked.

He turns to retreat out into the hall and wait for Bucky there, but as he does so he notices a wooden book shelf with framed pictures along the top, at waist height. An image in a blue frame catches his eye and he walks over to it, fascinated. It’s a closeup of a slim-looking boy, maybe about 14 years old, his eyes cast down away from the camera but the corners are crinkled in crow’s feet and he’s smiling, maybe even laughing. It’s one of those shots that makes you connect, makes you laugh along.

Steve only brought a few pictures of his old life with him when he left, and he hasn’t looked at them in ten years, hasn’t seen his old self. Looking at it, Steve feels a comforting rush of nostalgia; a whirlwind of belonging, and safety, and happiness, and warmth. Sunshine. Basketball, sandwiches, Bucky. 

He blinks twice. Coming back to the moment he notices he’s holding the picture in his hand, and that he can sense a pair of eyes is now trained on his back.

“Do you remember that day?”

Steve turns round slowly and bites back a gasp when he takes in Bucky’s dishevelled form, fights an urge to spring across the room and grab him.

“I… yeah,” he says, and realises he’s still on the verge of tears. “You had your first camera.”

Bucky rubs his eyes. 

“The pictures help. Some stuff I forgot completely, other stuff is just kinda hazy, like I’m not sure if it’s real or if I imagined it. At least the pictures give me some evidence. Although, I’m not sure I can trust them any more than I can trust my own fucked up memory.”

“You can trust these,” says Steve. “They’re great, Buck. You’re really talented.”

Bucky scoffs and shoves his hands in his pockets. His eyes flick to the wall planner, and Steve’s relieved Bucky didn’t find him looking at it.

“Why are you here?”

_To ask you if you have any evidence against Alexander Pierce or Vasily Karpov? To deliberately defy orders, for the hell of it? Because… I HAD to come?_

“I’m sorry I’m in your apartment. The door…”

“I know. It sucks. I’m waiting on the landlord, but he’s a lazy fuck.”

“Why don’t you just…”

“I can’t afford it,” Bucky cuts in, sharply. He hasn’t cracked a smile yet. “Why are you here?” he asks.

“I didn’t have your number.”

It sounds so pathetic, but it’s the second truest thing Steve can say.

“I… really wanted to see you.” Is the first.

“Even if there are people here who wanna kill you?”

“I was careful,” Steve mumbles.

“You’re fuckin’ stupid.” Bucky replies. “You’re a stupid punk.”

“A stupid punk who can’t stop thinking about the best kiss of his life,” says Steve. It’s corny but it’s the pure truth.

Bucky stares at him for a minute, eyes intense and mouth set in a firm line. He swallows, and Steve can see the movement of the muscles around his jaw. Then he softens. Steve sees him surrender. He flows across the room like water and slips his arms up around Steve’s neck.

“Even up until that moment, I wasn’t sure,” He mumbles into Steve’s unwashed sweater.

“Of…. Me? Or you?” Steve wonders.

Bucky scoffs. “ _YOU_.”

“What, you didn’t see the huge sign on my head?”

That makes Bucky laugh, properly, and finally Steve can relax and take pleasure in holding Bucky close.

“My face in flashing neon?”

“God, Bucky... I wanted to tell you.” Steve knows it’s stupid, but there’s a part of him that can’t quite believe his feelings haven’t beamed themselves directly into Bucky’s brain, given the strength of them.

“Me too,” says Bucky. “Me too.”

Steve’s body moulds instantly to Bucky’s. He could slip a hand up the back of his shirt. Slide his fingers below the waistband at the back of his jeans. He could…

Bucky pulls back slightly, his wrists still resting on Steve’s shoulders, and looks up at him with glazed eyes, parted lips. Steve is breathless in the face of Bucky’s beauty. Someone pours a bucket of warm honey over him. There’s not another mouth like it anywhere in the world. Bucky’s lips are moving.

“Do you want some coffee?” he asks, in his most gravelly, seductive voice.

Steve stares for a second, incredulous, then they both chuckle.

“Yes. Yes PLEASE,” Steve says to Bucky’s lips, before bodily shoving him towards the kitchen.

*

The couch is really more of a love seat, without enough space for them both to sit comfortably, so they sit on the floor, leaning their backs against it, and sip their coffee.

“Your neighbour let me in downstairs,” Steve says. “Great lady.”

“Oh, you met Betty? Ha, she’s cute,” Bucky agrees. “I bet she loved you. She’ll probably ask me for your number.”

“You can give it to her!” Steve grins. “I’m dying to meet someone! We had good chemistry.”

Bucky elbows him sharply in the ribs.

*

“You must have known I couldn’t leave this alone, Bucky,” Steve says, walking around the room while Bucky sits.

“Dumb as it sounds, I really did want to keep you out of danger,” Bucky replies.

Steve looks at him sceptically.

“So why did you tell me what was happening to you?”

Bucky smirks back. “ I dunno, man. Why did you keep picking fights in my earshot when you were too skinny to win them?”

Steve has the grace to look busted.

*

“That one is amazing.” Steve’s standing once again in front of Bucky’s picture of the frontrunning presidential candidate.

Bucky shrugs. “It came out real well. I got lucky,” he says. “She looks happy, huh? Warm. She got chops too though, right?”

Steve nods. “She’ll be a great president. I’m kinda sad I don’t get to vote for her.”

Bucky chews his lip, silent for a while.

*

“Buck, have you thought about, y’know, doing the hacking thing on Pierce? Or Karpov?”

Bucky laughs, hollowly. “Besides the fact that anything I got would be totally inadmissible as evidence,” he says, “Those guys know all Rumlow’s tricks because they taught him. They’re not gonna leave any evidence where I can reach it.”

“Hmmm. There must be evidence, though,” Steve muses. “They must use email and phones for, y’know, Hydra stuff.”

Bucky replies tersely, indicating he really doesn’t want to be talking about his bosses. “I guess. You’d need a smarter guy than me to get at it, though.”

Steve decides not to pursue things for the time being. He’ll bring up his conversation with Peggy later, or maybe the next day. Let himself have a few happy hours with his friend.

“I’m starvin’ Buck,” he says. “You wanna get takeout?”

*

“Hey, remember we went on that lame double date to the mall, when we were, like 15?” Bucky sniggers. “I got that girl Connie to bring her friend Bonnie?”

“God, she wasn’t subtle at _all_.” Steve groans. “I tried to hold her hand? Like a GENTLEMAN? Just to be polite, y’know, and she was like, ‘Sorry shorty, I’m not really interested in you, I’m only here to hang out with Bucky.’ And.. and I said…” Steve is laughing hard. “I literally told her, ‘Me too, sweetheart. I can’t believe he made us bring girls!’” 

Bucky howls with laughter. Steve dabs at his eyes. “I mean, who the fuck has a best friend who name rhymes with theirs?” he splutters, close to hiccupping with laughter.

“It’s tragic how hard I tried to be straight,” Bucky sighs.

The laughter quietens down a little.

“I guess I came off as a snarky brat,” Steve says, “But I wasn’t lying to her. What was I…? _Damn_. You know, I was so sure everyone could see how I felt about you. I… I thought you had to know.” 

Bucky gives him a slightly rueful smile.

“I think… I thought I imagined things because I _wanted_ them to be true,” he says.

They wolf down the last of their pad thai and set down the boxes. For a moment there’s a pause in the traffic outside and a peaceful quiet falls. Steve feels Bucky exhale at the same time that he does, glances over at him, and they share a small smile.

*

Outside sky has darkened, and the stationery streetlights and car headlights from Nostrand Avenue make moving shadows on Bucky’s ceiling. Glancing out at the urban sky, purplish and hazy, Steve realises that the stars had been crystal clear back in Haiti. He sappily wishes he’d shown them to Bucky.

The conversation hasn’t faltered once, but they leap about with ease between radically different subjects, from the global to the personal. Steve revels in the kind of intimacy he hasn’t felt with another person for a decade, that he has missed so deeply. He thinks Bucky might feel it too; that they might be coming alive together. Forming a bubble here in Flatbush that they won’t want to leave.

“So, what happened with the guy you were dating? From work?” Bucky probes, failing to stifle a smile.

“Oh, God, Rupert? You _would_ remember that.” groans Steve. “I mean, it was never serious, but it ended soooo badly. It was a terrible, terrible cliché.”

“What happened?” Bucky is obviously not going to let this go.

Steve flushes and looks down at the floor.

“I… uh… I called him the wrong name.” he mumbles.

Bucky’s eyebrows shoot up in delight.

“… In bed,” he finishes, screwing up his face in mortification. Bucky guffaws.

“Oh my God,” he exclaims. “You are an AWFUL person.”

Steve is laughing too, now. In retrospect it was sort of hilarious.

“His FACE!” he chuckles. “He kinda stormed out on me in the middle of the night. You know, the last thing he said to me was, ‘Who the fuck is _Bucky?_ ’”

He utters this last part in a horror-stricken British accent to emphasize the humour of the situation. Bucky gasps and stares for a second, amazement crossing his face, before Steve shrugs at him and they both dissolve into hysterics. Bucky drops his forehead onto Steve’s chest, finds a muscular arm slung around his shoulders, and they embrace like that, shaking with released emotion until their eyes water, and their faces finally wander close enough that their mouths can’t stay apart any longer.

The kiss isn’t gentle, but fierce and hungry. They’re in a slightly awkward position on the floor, but neither of them wants to stop kissing just yet in order to move somewhere more comfortable. Bucky feels so warm, and now that Steve is sober, the sensation of kissing him blows Steve’s mind even more than it did that night in Haiti. This is the same gorgeous, charming boy he’d wanted so badly as a teenager, but now with rough stubble instead of smooth, soft cheeks. Ten years of tough experience on both sides, but the mutual desire hasn’t faded at all. Steve’s soul soars at Bucky’s embrace; he’s getting close to being swept away by it.

Bucky’s lips move to Steve’s neck, eliciting shuddering gasps, and then towards his ear.

“You’re keeping the beard, right?” comes his low whisper.

“Huh?” Steve opens his eyes and pulls back, confused.

“This beard,” Bucky smirks, stroking Steve’s face firmly with both thumbs. “You have to keep it. It’s really hot on you.”

“OK, yeah. I’llkeepthebeard,” Steve garbles, before lunging forward to bury his tongue in Bucky’s mouth again.

Bucky manoeuvres himself into Steve’s lap, and Steve slides both his hands round to grab two handfuls of Bucky’s ass. His mind is starting to wander a few steps ahead when he detects a vibration by Bucky’s left buttock. Dazed and horny, he raises a saucy eyebrow, but Bucky jumps out of his skin. He pulls his cell phone out of his back pocket, stares at the screen for a full minute, and when he looks up again, his face shows nothing but grim determination.

Steve wilts. It’s like they’ve been caught by a Mother Superior. Bucky clambers off him.

“I’ve got a job,” he says. “I gotta go now. Will you be OK here?”

He’s getting to his feet as he speaks, reaching for his camera bag, grabbing his jacket. Moving almost mechanically. The shift in him is painfully apparent.

“Don’t go,” Steve says.

“Steve…”

“You don’t have to. Tell ‘em you’re sick, or something.”

Bucky flinches. “S’not worth it,” he mumbles. “When I say that Rumlow always says he’ll arrange for me to tell Pierce I’m quitting.”

“SO QUIT!” Steve pleads. “Talk to Peggy. She can make sure your family is OK.”

“What, send them to London? I don’t think they want a surprise move.”

“But we –“

“I gotta go. I might not be back until morning, so, uh, you better take my bed.”

Steve gapes, then nods, numbly. He feels that creep of powerlessness, and with it a hot-blooded fury at Bucky’s manipulators. 

“I’ll come with you?” he asks, weakly.

“Steve. Really. Don’t make it… I gotta do this. We can talk more tomorrow. I’ll see you later, OK?” Bucky’s already trudging towards the door.

“Yeah.” Steve tries to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Bucky leaves the apartment with his shoulders hunched, head hanging low, and Steve’s heart folds in on itself with him. He remembers how the camera once made Bucky come alive, but now it just seems to weigh him down, like a millstone. Minutes earlier they’d both been on such an incredible high. This is so completely _unfair_.

Steve clenches his fists and forces himself to contain his anger with slow breaths. With Bucky gone, the apartment feels small and oppressive. Steve doesn’t want to snoop around so he tries to focus on watching TV, but his mind wanders back to Bucky. There must be something he can do, here and now, to make things easier on him. 

He’ll probably be hungry when he gets back.

He gets up and goes into the galley kitchen, which has barely enough room for him to turn around, and looks through the food cupboards. There’s very little – Bucky had, after all, just come back from a trip – but there’s fresh bread, and alongside the beer there’s some nasty-looking cheese, some cold sliced beef and some reasonably fresh-looking salad in the fridge. 

Steve used to cook all the time when it was just him and his mom, but he has got completely out of the habit over the last ten years – it’s been army rations in the field, takeout, the odd café, or a boring sandwich at home. He can’t remember ever taking so much care over a sandwich as he does now, though. He pulls out mayonnaise, mustard, salt and pepper, and makes several attempts at combining them until he’s happy with the outcome. Then he carefully assembles two sandwiches with the cold beef, tomatoes and lettuce, adds his special seasoned mayo, and devours one of them in four hungry bites.

He can’t find anything to keep the other sandwich fresh, so he just covers it with another plate and leaves it on the side. All of a sudden he feels overtaken by exhaustion; unsurprisingly, after the dramatic events of the past few days.

 _You better take my bed_ , Bucky had said, so Steve decides to do so. He brushes his teeth in Bucky’s poky bathroom, which, he notices, has a damp air of well-scrubbed mould about it, and goes into Bucky’s bedroom.

Compared to the living room and its collages of photographs and wall planners, Bucky’s bedroom is sparsely decorated. Steve guesses it’s a sanctuary, away from all his memory crutches and the stress of remembering.

Steve strips to his underwear and climbs into the bed. The quilt feels soft around him and the sheets smell clean but Buckyish, and it’s impossible for Steve’s body not to heat up at the thought of his friend joining him there. The harsh interruption earlier had brought their makeout session to an abrupt and frustrating halt, and Steve has to fight hard to resist the temptation to see things through to their natural conclusion by himself. Telling himself that to do so would be rude in the extreme, he winds himself up in Bucky’s bedding and succumbs to sleep.

*

Steve’s eyes open to the soft sound of someone moving about quietly in the apartment. He squints blearily at his phone and sees that it’s 3am. Bucky must just have got back.

Steve swings his legs out of the bed and opens the bedroom door. It’s dark, but Bucky’s thin curtains don’t shut out the glow from outside. There he is, in half-shadow, ghostly and cowed, with his back to Steve. He’s already kicked off his shoes and tossed his hat and jacket on the floor, and he seems to be massaging one shoulder with the opposite hand.

“Hey,” says Steve, softly.

Bucky whirls around, shocked, as if he’s forgotten Steve was there at all. Steve suddenly feels self-conscious, standing in the doorway to Bucky’s bedroom in just his shorts and a tank top which, really, could have been bigger. Bucky stares at him, and his cheeks go warm in the dim light.

He folds his arms across his body and takes a step forward, clearing his throat. “How did it go?” He asks, gently. “Are you… OK?”

Bucky just stares back at him, rooted to the spot. Steve feels awkward, concerned.

“Oh, hey, I, um, I hope you don’t mind… I… had a look around in the kitchen, made you a sandwich.”

The kitchen is in plain sight, and Steve is relieved when Bucky finally reacts. His eyes track slowly to the counter, where the sandwich sits on the side between two plates, and then back to Steve, blinking repeatedly.

His face flickers.

Then Bucky lunges towards him, in three quick steps, and Steve barely has time to step back and throw up his palms in panic before Bucky is crowding him back against the bedroom door, and kissing him like the plane is going down.

Steve grabs him by the arms, reflexively, but it only takes him a couple of seconds to catch on and then he’s pulling Bucky in instead of shoving him off, returning the kiss with equal fervour, moaning in surprise and enthusiasm. He feels lit up like Dyker Heights at Christmas, so relieved he wants to laugh. Bucky’s here, he’s in Brooklyn, with Bucky, and Bucky is…

Bucky is wrestling him through the doorway, towards the bed.

The kiss is frantic, aggressive, muscular. They stagger together with flailing limbs and collide with the nightstand, knocking down the lamp onto the floor somewhere, and collapse heavily onto Bucky’s bed. Steve rolls them over so Bucky’s under him, aiming to calm him, but Bucky won’t let up for a second; every time Steve tries to pull his head back Bucky just grabs it with both hands to keep the kiss going, and Steve soon forgets why he ever wanted to stop it.

Bucky’s hands are all over Steve, scratching, gripping, stroking his skin forcefully enough to cause friction burns. He’s crying out into Steve’s mouth; hungry, passionate sounds that stoke fire in Steve’s belly. When Steve wraps his arms around underneath him, pulling them flush together, Bucky wraps his legs around Steve and squeezes, grinding his hips upwards, and the moan he pulls from Steve is embarrassingly, unmistakeably desperate.

Steve manages to push him back down, then and create a gap big enough for him to tug at Bucky’s shirt and fumble with the button of his jeans.

“D’you want me?” Bucky pants, with a wild look in his eye. “Steve? You want me?”

Steve yanks his shirt off and starts to pull at his jeans. “I’ve always wanted you,” he replies, mouthing at Bucky’s neck.

“You want me _now? Do_ you?” Bucky asks again, with a wobble in his voice, and Steve understands, meets his eyes, cups his face for a second.

“Yes. _Yeah_ , I want you now. More than ever.” He kisses him again, to prove it, and Bucky wiggles awkwardly until his pants fall on the floor and they’re half-wrestling, half making out in their underwear.

Steve feels overloaded, overwhelmed, like he’s trying to surf a tidal wave at 500mph. Like his life has led back to this moment, in Bucky Barnes’s bedroom.

“I want you,” he murmurs in Bucky’s ear, and Bucky sobs back “I’m good?” and Steve moans out his confirmation, frantically mouthing his way to Bucky’s nipple, clamping his mouth there while he tears off their underwear, and Bucky spasms with it, howling out his agonised pleasure.

When their bodies align, skin to skin, and their legs interweave, and their cocks rub hotly together between their bellies, Steve can’t remember ever having felt anything so good. But when Bucky reaches down and grasps him with a trembling hand, the record is immediately shattered.

“AAH! BUCKY!” He groans, finding Bucky’s cock with his own hand. “ _GOD_ , you’re good. You’re _so_ good. You’re so _good_.” He repeats it like a mantra, pausing only to bite at Bucky’s shoulder, his jawline, his earlobe, while Bucky answers him with breathless moans. They stroke each other hard and fast like they’ll never get another chance, like everything depends on this.

If Steve could entertain a clear thought, he would still struggle to believe the incredible rush of Bucky’s touch. He would try to savour it, strive to make it last, but would realise, nonetheless, that he was hurtling towards a crashing orgasm, out of all control. 

“Shit! SHIT! STEVE!”

Steve snaps his head up at the urgency in Bucky’s voice, just in time to witness that Bucky is _stunning_ when he comes, shock and awe all over his beautiful face. His moans become a disbelieving cry. The juddering hand on Steve’s dick suddenly feels like a lightning rod, and Steve has never come so hard, or so brightly. They make sounds, not words, but understand each other perfectly.

Bucky’s not finished gasping for breath when Steve slips one hand beneath his head and kisses him again, forcefully, still, but with devotion instead of urgency. Kisses him until the turbulence subsides, trying to communicate feelings which he thinks it may be too soon to voice. Leaning on his elbows he thumbs Bucky’s cheek, and finds it wet. 

He pulls back, concerned. Bucky’s lashes are damp and stuck together, his watery eyes cast to the side to avoid Steve’s. Then he laughs, a little brokenly. Wipes his face on the corner of the quilt. He looks back and Steve and smiles.

“What the fuck is that?” Bucky asks, with a little catch still audible in his voice.

Steve frowns. “What?”

“THAT?” Bucky raises his eyebrows and pointedly indicates downwards with his head.

“Huh?” Steve doesn’t quite follow.

“Thing’s like a frickin’… baby’s arm.” He starts to smirk through his tears.

Steve turns bright red, but chuckles with relief. “Look pal, _you’re_ not exactly…”

“What, they got gym machines for that in London? I gotta try that.”

He’s smiling properly now. Beaming, in fact. Steve collapses down next to him, giggling.

“Oh, you’re gonna pass out and leave me like this now?”

“Shut up, Bucky! Jeez!”

“Not the first time I cleaned up your mess, huh?” Bucky fumbles in the nightstand for tissues and shakes his head at Steve while mopping up the large amount of come that’s currently adorning his chest and stomach. Steve buries his head under a pillow.

“Hey,” Bucky says, softer. “Hey.”

He shuffles over to get closer to Steve, who scoops him up and enfolds him in his arms. They kiss again, slow and meaningful. 

“You should sleep,” says Steve. “I’ll be right here.”

Bucky smiles, warm and real. Then a flash of mischief crosses his face again.

“OK. Imma dream about that monster dick. Hope I don’t get nightmares.”

“OH MY GOD. Shut UP!” says Steve, shoving him hard before flinging an arm across Bucky and moulding himself snugly to his old friend’s back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put an example of one of Bucky's photos on my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/escapologistldn), although my skills are clearly far inferior to his.


	15. Lunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky pass a blissful morning together in Brooklyn. Hopefully nothing REALLY DRAMATIC will go wrong.

**Brooklyn, 2016**

As Steve wakes he becomes gradually aware of a sweaty patch on his calf where it’s resting against someone else’s lower limb. His mouth bends up into a grin before he even opens his eyes to confirm that he’s been lying next to a naked Bucky. 

It feels like late morning, as if he’s slept for hours. Mildly curious, he fumbles for his cellphone, but on finding it dead, he decides he really doesn’t care about anything outside of this apartment. Instead he rolls over and slips his arm around the hot skin of Bucky’s waist. 

As he shifts closer to snuggle up, he realises Bucky’s smiling into the bedsheets. He turns towards Steve and crumples up his face, with one eye squeezed shut as if he’s looking into the sun. Shifting onto his back under Steve’s arm, he runs a lazy hand over his own chest and strains double-chinned, to look down at his bite-covered body, experimentally stroking a bruised nipple. Then he looks up at Steve with a shark-like grin.

“You _animal!_ ” he croaks, dry-throated.

“Shut up!” Steve grins, blushing.

“You are! You’re a goddamn animal, Rogers!”

“Says you, you fuckin’ screamer,” he retorts.

Bucky has the grace to blush at that. He rolls over and buries his face in Steve’s chest.

“Yeah. That’s, uh… new,” he murmurs, and his confession prompts a gratified flutter in Steve’s chest.

“I hope we didn’t wake Betty,” Steve sniggers into Bucky’s hair.

“She doesn’t wear her hearing aids at night. We’re good,” Bucky mumbles back.

Steve chuckles and wraps his other arm around Bucky, holding him close. They lie like that for a while, charging themselves up with each other’s presence. Eventually Bucky raises his head.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “Can I… I gotta…” He reaches for his phone on the nightstand and snaps a quick picture of Steve, all sleep-soft and tousled, wrapped up in his duvet. Steve beams for him.

*

“Hey, where ya goin?” complains Bucky when Steve shifts to get up.

“Um, bathroom, if that’s OK with you?” Steve retorts.

Bucky isn’t happy but he waves Steve off and hunkers back down into the bedding. Steve comes back via the kitchen, where he finds only crumbs in place of the sandwich he’d made the evening before: Bucky must have woken up in the night and eaten it. Smiling to himself, he makes some buttered toast and wolfs it down while making coffee.

“Hey, here you go Buck,” he says, coming back into Bucky’s room and handing him a cup.

“Huh?” Bucky’s puzzlement gives way to a look of joy and surprise out of all proportion, and Steve decides he wants to bring Bucky coffee in bed _every_ morning. He sets his own mug down and climbs back into bed.

After taking a couple of slurps, Bucky flops his head down on the pillow next to Steve and they grin at each other with undisguised happiness.

“What?” Bucky asks.

Coffee breath is infinitely preferable to morning breath, and Steve can’t help but kiss him in reply. It makes Bucky go fluid under him, reach for him with all four limbs and pull Steve flush against him, pushing for more with gently undulating hips. They kiss slowly this time, replacing last night’s desperation with tenderness and murmurs of contentment, before things become inevitably dirtier and they end up groping for one another, each stroking the other’s dick with gathering pace until Bucky has to break the kiss to curse out his climax into Steve’s ear. Steve follows suit, his body shuddering with pleasure as he reaches a peak so intense it steals his breath for several moments.

It’s seamless, Steve has to admit. In the past he’s felt awkward the morning after sex, and it has always taken him a while with a new partner to shake off the lingering self-consciousness he feels about his body, even though it’s been highly presentable for years now. The way Bucky drifts his fingertips from Steve’s pecs down to his abs, though, and looks at him with clear appreciation, makes him feel attractive in a way he never really has. It makes him want to flex and preen. _This is RIGHT,_ he thinks again. _It’s where I SHOULD be, Hydra be damned._

They kiss again, with smiling mouths, and Steve feels blissfully defenceless, as if this is all it ever took for him to shrug off the weight of the world. He thinks of the fantasies he nurtured long ago about sharing an apartment with Bucky while they both studied at NYU. If he’d known then he’d have to wait ten years to wake up with Bucky, hell, he probably would have taken it, but he’d have wanted to know whether it was the start of something lasting or doomed.

Bucky looks down at his come-splattered torso and sighs heavily.

“Godammit, Rogers. Again?”

“ _Sorry,_ ” grins Steve, sarcastically. He watches Bucky clean himself up again, feeling like a giant dope.

“What?” Bucky smirks back at him.

An impulse darts through Steve.

“What if you came with me? To London?” he asks.

“Ha, yeah. That would be cool,” replies Bucky, distractedly, reaching for more tissues.

“I’m serious!”

Bucky looks him in the eye and realises that he actually means it.

“Steve…” he begins, and Steve can tell by his tone of voice that he’s burst their bubble of private happiness. He could kick himself.

“Look, I… I can’t leave mom and Becca here when there’s even the smallest threat to their safety,” Bucky is saying. “And I feel like Karpov could find me anywhere. If they found us together… it’s too dangerous. Half the time I’m convinced he’s watching me _here_ …”

Bucky’s fear is palpable, and Steve can fully understand why. His eyes track over to Bucky’s left arm at the mention of Karpov, and he gasps slightly when he sees for the first time the messy scar where Hydra’s bullet hit him as a teenager. A sunken white crater with ragged edges half way between his shoulder and his elbow. Steve finds it jarring. It reminds him once again of his anger toward the architects of Bucky’s situation.

Bucky notices where Steve’s gaze has settled, but doesn’t mention the bullet or move to hide his arm.

“I know,” Steve sighs. “I understand that. But listen. If you talked to my FBI friend…”

“You know I don’t wanna do that. She’ll try and push me.”

“But Bucky, there’s some more… some stuff has come to light. About Pierce and Karpov.”

Bucky looks at him with a suspicious frown.

“I was talking to my work buddies…”

“You TOLD them? Holy SHIT Steve!” Bucky sits upright, incredulous.

“Listen!” Steve placates him. “My boss knows Pierce, OK? They were in college together. And get this – he knew Karpov too. He thinks Karpov is part of something bigger even than the mob. He can back you up, Bucky!”

Bucky stares at him. 

“I wondered how long we’d have before you brought this shit up,” he says, wearily, sinking back down onto the bed.

“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t wanna push you.” Steve says, stretching out next to him. “I just think it might give you more of a chance, y’know. Just talk to her, see what she has to say. If you still don’t wanna do anything, I’ll make sure you don’t have to.”

“I dunno, man…” Bucky lies on his back, directing his words to the ceiling.

He’s tense now, and Steve can feel it. As desperate as he is for Bucky to take action, he has to admit that the task of taking on two such powerful men is extremely daunting, and Bucky has more to lose than he has. 

Over the intervening years, he had thought often about the way Bucky used to leap into Steve’s fights, both verbal and physical, once it became obvious that Steve was floundering. Far from irritating Steve, he found it comforting, that Bucky cared enough about him to save him from himself and then give him an honest dressing down. He’d harboured a fantasy, embarrassingly enough, that if he ever found Bucky again, he might be the one to step in. That he could bring his new body, and all the respect it seemed to command, and use it to help Bucky out of whatever scrape he might find himself in.

But it turns out that Bucky’s tormentors are on a different scale entirely from the bullies and wrongheaded authority figures of their youth, and Bucky’s fight is unimaginably harder. Steve can’t do this for him, can’t force him onto the path of action. The only way is to start eliminating obstacles. 

Taking a breath, he swallows the burning hate he feels for Alexander Pierce and Vasily Karpov. 

“OK Buck,” he forces himself to say. “OK. Whatever you want.”

Bucky visibly relaxes. He turns to Steve with a small smile.

“What I _want_ is for you to live in this apartment and never go outside again.”

Steve smiles back, sadly, and wonders what the fuck he is going to do now.

*

Two showers later, Steve’s stomach points out that it’s late morning and time to make a concrete plan for lunch. Bucky has to agree, but his anguished search of the kitchen confirms that no groceries have magically appeared overnight.

“I don’t have much. I’ll go out,” he offers, banging a cupboard door shut. 

Steve grins, slipping his arms around Bucky’s waist from behind. “C’mon baby, lemme buy you lunch?” he murmurs, expecting Bucky to twist out of his grip and laugh at him, but instead Bucky presses his back into Steve’s body, sighing. He slides his hands around to rest on Bucky’s hips, and feels them roll very faintly against him.

“Are you sure you wanna…”

“Please. It’s fine,” Steve insists. “No bad guys are gonna spot me.”

“You shouldn’t joke about it,” Bucky says, but he’s smiling as he turns to plant a kiss on Steve’s lips.

“I look pretty different now,” Steve reminds him. “I’m a lot more studly. Anybody watching you will be thinking about how lucky you got, not wondering if I used to be skinny.”

“This could be really fucking stupid, Steve,” warns Bucky, stepping away and folding his arms.

Steve just grins and raises and eyebrow. Bucky stares for a beat, then throws his hands up in surrender.

“OK then, ‘studly,’” he says, shaking his head and smirking. “Let’s go.”

 

They leave Bucky’s apartment together, wedging the front door closed with the makeshift doorstop, and head north, winding their way slowly through Flatbush and up towards Crown Heights. Bucky walks nervously, throwing occasional looks over his shoulder, but Steve can’t keep the grin off his face. It’s another crisp, bright day and he’s crackling with happy memories. This neighbourhood isn’t the most familiar to him, but Prospect Park is like leaping into a photo album of his childhood. He finds himself awestruck by the autumn leaves, ranging from brown and keep purple through to fiery reds and sunny yellows, and thinking for the first time in years about how he could render those colours in oil paint.

Even the dingiest stretches of Brooklyn look vibrant to Steve now. The down-at-heel laundromats and electronics shops which wouldn’t have caused him to look twice in his teens now seem charmingly entrepreneurial, and their peeling shopfronts and LED window signs look so creative he suddenly wants to photograph everything. He curses his dead phone and vows to spend more time walking the Brooklyn streets.

Despite his jittery demeanour Bucky keeps up a steady flow of conversation and before long Steve realises they’ve fallen exactly into their old rhythm of matched strides and arch humour. The reminisce about everything but _that night_ , talk a little bit about their lives now and impossible dreams for the future. If he could do anything, Bucky would divide his time between newsy reportage photography and National Geographic shoots. If he laughs at Steve’s unimaginative goal of finding more time for drawing and socialising alongside his Shield missions, it’s because he doesn’t quite hear the implicit _and have you with me_ underneath Steve’s mumbled reply.

Eventually they hit a shopping district with a string of cafés.

“You wanna get pizza?” Bucky asks.

“Nah, we’re not 16 any more, Bucky. I think we need a new thing,” Steve snarks.

Bucky laughs. “OK, how about here?” he says, squinting at the menu outside a Japanese restaurant.

“Sure. I love sashimi,” Steve enthuses.

“I still like pizza though,” Bucky insists as the wander inside. “I’m not ditching it for you.”

For some reason his comment floods Steve with warmth. “I know,” he says. _We could just keep it for Fridays_ , he thinks.

*

The restaurant is well-lit, with bright white surfaces everywhere. It’s a little chaotic and packed with the lunchtime crowd, but Steve manages to manoeuvre them into a booth where they can’t easily be seen. When the waitress comes Bucky is frowning over the price of ramen, so Steve leaps in and orders a long list of gyoza, sushi, sashimi, tempura, miso and katsu curry to share before Bucky can stop him.

Bucky keeps chatting away and Steve glows inside to see his old charm return to the surface. He had feared Bucky was so changed by his traumatic experience that he’d always be brittle and fearful, so it was an overwhelming relief to find that the old Bucky was still there, albeit browbeaten and lacking the confidence that used to give him his cocky swagger.

They’ve been waiting ten minutes or so when Steve senses someone approaching them. He feels defensive, but not half as much as Bucky looks when the man speaks to him, just as the waiter places the tray of sushi in between them.

“James Barnes?” 

The man is all smiles, but Bucky just looks bewildered and confused. A little frightened, even. His reaction is a far cry from the old Bucky, Steve thinks, who would greet strangers like old friends and offer all comers the gift of his beautiful smile. It makes Steve sad, really, more than angry, to witness this poignant change.

Bucky’s eyes scan the restaurant nervously before finding their way back to the intruder.

“It’s you, isn’t it? I’m Grant Ward. Remember? We worked together on the Journal, back in the day?”

Steve watches the man’s face as he leans slowly across the full length of the table, extending his hand for Bucky to shake.

“I’m sorry, I don’t really remember you,” mumbles Bucky. “It’s a… thing… I have, where I don’t always hold on to stuff.”

“Oh, that’s OK,” Ward pooh-poohs Bucky with a wave of his hand. “We didn’t work together long. I just recognised… Hey! Do you guys like green tea?”

“Um… I guess?” 

Steve senses Bucky’s discomfort at this odd approach and frowns at the guy, but he’s already rambling on.

“Great! I got a pot but I won’t have time to drink it now. Shame to waste it. You guys should have it. Here!” 

He turns to another table and rapidly brings over a pot with two small round beakers. “You guys knock yourselves out! OK, great seeing you, James!” he grins, over his shoulder, before heading rapidly towards the door.

“Weird… I don’t remember that guy, like, at _all_ ,” shrugs Bucky, reaching for the teapot.

He’s used to it, Steve thinks. It’s normal for things to confuse him. And yet…

Bucky starts to fill one of the cups.

And yet.

That guy seemed to be in a rush. If so, why bother to greet Bucky at all? If not, why not stay? Why give them a pot of tea and leave?

Something doesn’t…

Bucky takes a tea cup in his hand.

Ward had been alone.

“Why did he have two cups?” Steve says. “Grant Ward?”

Bucky meets his eyes with a frown, his hand frozen in mid-air.

A gust of cold wind blows in, where the door has been thrown open. The skin on the back of Steve’s neck prickles. Time slows down, and it seems like the chatter in the restaurant has gone quiet.

“STEVE!” rings out a woman’s voice. Familiar, but unusually shrilll. British.

Bucky’s eyes go wide. Steve whips round.

“DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!” yells Peggy Carter. “PUT THAT DOWN!”

Bucky places the cup back down on the table and puts his hands up, as if under arrest. Steve stares from him to Peggy and back again.

“FUCKing hell,” says Peggy, holstering her gun. “I cut _that_ a bit fine.”

*

In the minutes that follow, the restaurant is evacuated and a team in hazmat suits sweeps in as Peggy brings Steve and Bucky to her waiting car. Steve hears their radios crackle with a sentence that sounds like: “SUSPECT USE OF RADIOACTIVE TOXIN.”

“Peggy, what the hell?” Steve asks. His guts are churning with shock, panic and worst of all, a mortifying sense of having dropped the ball.

She turns on her heel.

“What the hell? What the hell were YOU thinking, Steve, coming here to New York, and then turning your bloody phone off? Haven’t you seen the news, for Christ’s sake?”

They stare at her blankly. News?

“Um, I forgot to charge it,” Steve says, glancing sideways at Bucky, who looks pale and terrified. 

Peggy rolls her eyes. “I’m aware of that. I’ve been ringing it every five minutes since 9am. And YOU, James Barnes, well. I should have kept tabs on your phone number. Took us a good couple of hours to find you.”

“Uh, sorry?” Bucky blurts, nervously, prompting her to smile at him and extend her hand.

“Agent Peggy Carter. We’ve met, actually, after the incident in Little Odessa. I came to the hospital, remember?”

Bucky screws his face up, shaking her hand. “Kinda,” he mutters.

Steve watches the exchange with mounting disbelief that Peggy should be performing social niceties when he needs to know what’s going on.

“What’s going on, Peg?” he almost yells, and she softens slightly, accepting that the two men are completely in the dark.

“Come on,” she says. “Come with me.”

 

In the police car behind Peggy’s sits an impassive-looking Grant Ward. His expression doesn’t change when Steve eyes him with murderous rage. It’s only the paralysis of shock that prevents him from diving towards the car and yanking Ward out through a broken window.

“Peggy, he’s… he was with Hydra?”

She gives him a meaningful look before shoving him bodily into the back of her Dodge Charger.  
“Karpov’s man, yes,” she concedes. “Look, you’re safe now. Have a look at the news, will you, while I get us out of here?”

Obediently Bucky pulls out his phone. His jaw drops as soon as he registers the news alerts, and he grabs at Steve’s arm.

“Holy SHIT! HOOOOLY SHIT, Steve, look at this!”

Steve’s eyes swim for a second as he tries to absorb the headlines.

 

• **DATA LEAK EXPOSES CRIMINAL ACTIVITY AT WORLDNEWS**

• **EMAILS AND FINANCIAL RECORDS REVEAL LINKS TO RUSSIAN CRIMINAL NETWORKS**

• **ALEXANDER PIERCE DETAINED WHILE ATTEMPTING TO BOARD PRIVATE JET**

 

Steve can feel Bucky’s eyes on him as he reads, wide and searching. He’s trembling where their arms are pressed together in Peggy’s backseat. He reads through the three headlines again, without really seeing them, and runs over the bizarre incident in the Japanese café moments earlier. Dread settles in his guts and his brain feels fuzzy; he can’t put the pieces together.

“Peggy, is this real? What’s going on?” he asks, returning Bucky’s stare.

She inhales audibly.

“At six o’clock this morning, a huge amount of raw data pertaining to WorldNews and Pierce himself was dumped onto the internet,” she says, slowly. Her voice is so familiar to Steve that he can tell she’s trying to make it gentle, but he can hear the tension, the excitement, perhaps, underneath the professionalism. 

“My agency’s first assessment was that the data was too voluminous to have been falsified, and we quickly realised that certain elements of it correlated with our existing… suspicions.” She meets Steve’s eye briefly in the rear view as she pulls out into the street.

“By 9am we had enough to detain several key WorldNews personnel,” she goes on, “Including, James, your former editor, Brock Rumlow.”

Bucky gasps and stares at Steve. “Rumlow got arrested?” he asks. “ _Pierce_?”

“They’re both in custody at the moment,” Peggy confirms. 

Steve feels Bucky jolt suddenly.

“My mom and sister?” he demands. “Did you check them?”

“It’s a good thing Steve told me about the threat to them,” Peggy says. “I was able to send officers to them. They’re fine.” 

Bucky slumps back in his seat, hiding his face in his hands. Steve rests what he hopes is a comforting hand on Bucky’s thigh while leaning forward to talk to Peggy.

“But where did it come from?” he asks her. “Wikileaks?”

“They’ve denied any involvement,” Peggy replies, “And it wasn’t any of our people. It looks as though we got extremely lucky. Our agenda seems to have overlapped with… someone else’s.”

Behind her, Bucky clears his throat and asks quietly, “Agent Carter? Was there… do you guys know anything about…”

Peggy seems to catch his meaning straight away and nods vigorously, replying before Bucky can even get the words out.

“We have a team going after Vasily Karpov,” she tells him.

*

They sit in silence for a while, making their way north. Mercifully the post-lunch traffic isn’t heavy and soon they’re on the Brooklyn Bridge. Bucky stares pensively out of the window, worrying his lip, but Steve can’t help the way his heart soars and his pulse quickens as the skyline of lower Manhattan rises before them. _This is my town_ , he thinks to himself, squeezing Bucky’s thigh tighter, and Bucky’s hand drifts over to land on top of Steve’s.

He hasn’t asked where they’re going, but Steve reasons they’re probably headed for the FBI HQ in Tribeca. It’s an unremarkable skyscraper on Federal Plaza which he remembers vividly from his old life and the case against Hydra. In spite of the insane developments of the past few days, Steve feels calm and present here, in this car, with Bucky and Peggy. It’s almost like landing in a disaster zone with a trustworthy team. There’s an intimidatingly huge task ahead of them, but this is where Steve shines.

As they reach the financial district, Peggy’s phone rings.

“Shit,” she says, glancing down at it. 

She spins the wheel, bringing them off into a side street where she can stop, and gets out of the car to return the call. 

With the engine dead and the traffic a little way off, the car feels peaceful. Steve and Bucky lean towards each other at the same time, and Steve lifts his hand from Bucky’s lap to reach around his shoulders, pulling him in. He feels Bucky slump against him. He wants to reassure Bucky, grab him with both hands and drag him through this nightmarish drama to the blue skies and open water beyond, but at this moment he is still struggling to make sense of it all for himself.

“Fuuuuuuck,” Bucky breathes.

“Hey, we’re OK,” Steve answers in a whisper, hoping he’s right. _I’ve done this before_ , he reminds himself. _I’ve been to court and testified against scum like Karpov. I’ve looked them in the eye, and I’ll do it again_. Maybe there will eventually be a way to repay Bucky for the loyalty he showed Steve in their teens, which was so simple but meant everything.

Peggy is only gone for a minute and when she returns, she’s grim-faced. She climbs back into the driver’s seat and exhales, looking from Steve to Bucky.

“They were too late,” she says, eventually.

Steve’s mind races, trying to connect the dots. She must be talking about the team she mentioned earlier, he reasons. The one going after Karpov. Realisation burns through him and he thumps the back of the passenger seat in anger and frustration.

“Bastard got away again?” he asks through gritted teeth.

“You could say that,” Peggy replies, chewing her pillar box-red lip. “Karpov’s dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to anyone that's still with me!
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/escapologistldn)


	16. Safety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky find various ways to decompress after their near-death experience, and Peggy makes a plan.
> 
> Sorry this chapter took me such a long time. I got stuck and found it really difficult, for some reason, so I started writing something else. This one is flowing a bit better for me now, though, so hopefully the rest should be done more regularly.

**Manhattan, 2016**

“Peggy, wha…?” Steve begins, but pipes down immediately when he hears the stress in her voice.

“I’ll update you both when I have more information, alright? We’re nearly at HQ,” she almost snaps back, and Steve sees that she’s gripping the wheel almost as tightly as Bucky is clutching at his own hand. Within ten strained minutes they’re entering the underground carpark of the FBI building. 

Peggy starts muttering on her phone as soon as they’re out of the car, so Steve and Bucky follow her in stunned silence into the elevator.

She installs them in an empty office while she goes to meet with her colleagues, promising to return with more information. As soon as she leaves, Bucky turns to Steve, panic-stricken.

“What the fuck is going on?” he whispers, high-pitched, through gritted teeth.

“Jeeeeeesus,” exhales Steve, screwing his face up tight and massaging his forehead with fingers and thumb. “That was fuckin’ close. I really didn’t think, y’know, it would actually _happen_.”

Shock. Ten years ago, Steve spent the night thinking Bucky could be dead, and when he wasn’t it began to feel to Steve as though he never would be. Not because he thought Bucky had a charmed life, but because he knew now that he couldn’t tolerate it; that he wouldn’t know who to be, or how to go on. Living thousands of miles away, the thought of Bucky living happily in Brooklyn had been central to Steve’s thoughts, even though they couldn’t be in touch, and given him the push he needed to keep going.

And now, to have come so close again to actual ruin, Steve feels an odd blankness where usually he’d expect a fiery, vengeful rage. As much as being in a New York law enforcement building gives him some disturbing flashbacks, his anxiety is already flattening out. Being next to a living, breathing Bucky, no matter how spooked, still makes him feel at ease.

They sit in silence for a while, staring. Processing that feeling of what might have been.

“I thought something wasn’t right,” Steve says. “I was just thinking, why would he need two cups? I… I think I’d have stopped you, OK?”

Bucky smiles, sadly. “You ever feel like the universe is shitting on you?” he asks.

Steve offers a hollow laugh.

“I mean, this morning, I was, like, the happiest I’ve ever been. And now…”

Steve turns to look him straight in the eye, placing a comforting hand on his knee.

“Hey. Listen. It’s gonna be OK. Karpov’s gone. Pierce is on the ropes. You’re gonna be free, Bucky.”

Bucky stares back at him for a moment.

“Wow,” he says. “I hadn’t quite got that far in my head yet.”

“Today has been scary as fuck,” Steve goes on. “But we’ll get through it, OK? We’ll do whatever we have to.”

Bucky nods. “Thank God you’re with me,” he says. 

Steve pulls his chair alongside Bucky’s and extends an arm around him. Bucky rests his head on Steve’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “From our point of view, this was pretty good timing. It’s like whoever dropped the bomb on Pierce waited until I was…” A thought occurs to him then, like a flash of red in his mind, but he bats it away. “I’m glad I’m here,” he finishes.

“Why d’you think Karpov decided he wanted me gone, after all these years?” Bucky wonders.

“You were useful before, then when Pierce was exposed, you became a liability. I guess he was just doing what he could to protect Pierce,” Steve answers. “Not that it would have done any good. You can’t be the only loose end in their evil fucking empire. I cannot _wait_ to see that bastard go down.”

Bucky nods vigorously against Steve’s shoulder, and Steve turns his face into Bucky’s hair, lips moving against his forehead. Bucky jerks his head back.

“Are you fucking SMILING, Rogers? Seriously?” He scowls up at Steve.

“Happiest you’ve ever been, huh?” Steve grins back.

“ _That’s_ what you focus on? Remember when we almost got _murdered_?” Bucky tries to keep it deadpan, but Steve can see the smile encroaching.

“OK, OK. I’m incredibly happy to be with you. To be WITH with you,” he smiles, running a hand along Steve’s thick thigh. “I dunno why you had to bring so much fucking… drama, and, like, threats to my life, though.”

Steve looks offended. “Listen pal, the drama was coming, with or without me. I’m here to be your human shield. Y’know, like you used to be for me?”

Bucky leans into him, allowing Steve to pull him close, then turns his face up to give Steve a slow kiss on the lips. It gives Steve butterflies, the notion that Bucky’s next to him now, and might kiss him whenever the mood takes him. Just being together is monumental enough, regardless of the insanity with Pierce and Hydra.

When Bucky pulls back his eyes are heavy-lidded, and he looks very tired. “I’m sorry I tried to get rid of you,” he murmurs. “That was obviously stupid.”

Steve smiles back. “Yeah, well, I hope you learned your lesson,” he says. “I think we should stick together from now on. Whatever happens.”

Bucky nods, earnestly. “Yeah, that sounds smart,” he says, but his voice wavers minutely as Steve leans in to kiss him again. The promise in it, and the peacefulness, insulates Steve’s mind from the difficult business of working out _how_ they’re going to stick together.

It takes Steve’s breath away, how Bucky can pin him in a moment like that. Can stop him caring, or even thinking, about anything else. In ten years, no exercise, or drink, or one-night stand, or lifesaving mission, has ever numbed the noisy turbulence in his brain… but when Bucky touches him, he feels calm.

He sighs contentedly, stroking Bucky’s cheek with his thumb. The poor guy looks ready to fall asleep.  
“Get you a coffee from the machine?” he offers, standing up.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks,” says Bucky, rubbing his eyes.

“Or maybe a… GREEN TEA?” he says ominously, over his shoulder.

Bucky’s face is the most incredulous picture of what-the-fuck Steve has ever seen on any person, including Nick Fury. 

“Oh my GOD, STEVEN!” he shouts at Steve’s smirking form, as it leaves the room in search of beverages. 

*

“The tea was full of Polonium 210,” announces Peggy, calm-faced, reading from her phone as she walks into the office. She looks up from Steve to Bucky. “Very expensive stuff. You’d both have been dead within days. It would have been nasty, too.”

Steve knows this should make him anxious, or grateful to be alive, but it’s all so surreal that he can’t quite let it sink in.

“So… Karpov sent him?” asks Bucky, nervously.

“It was probably the last thing he did,” sighed Peggy. “It’s a good thing we’d been watching his people for so long. We got to you just in time to see Dubrovsky walking out, and we recognised him immediately.”

Bucky frowns. “Dubrov… oh.”

“The man who tried to kill you was called Yuri Dubrovsky.”

“So he wasn’t really at the Journal?” Bucky says, and Steve thinks he can detect a hint of relief in his voice. He hadn’t forgotten an entire acquaintance, after all.

“He may have been around there, but that wasn’t his main cover, no. He was one of Karpov’s closest allies.” Peggy seems livelier, now. More like her usual gung-ho self, less worn and weary.

“He must have followed you from your apartment,” Peggy goes on, looking at Bucky. “It was a pretty desperate move, but apparently, you didn’t get a very early start this morning.” She glances down at her phone, and Steve can see a smile playing around her lips.

Steve looks across at his old friend, remembering how Bucky had rightly urged caution. He can’t think about it for long, though, without accidentally replaying the way they woke up together, which couldn’t have been more perfect. 

“… so it’s a good thing we finally managed to get a fix on _your_ phone, James,” she’s saying, giving Steve the side-eye. He snaps out of his happy reverie and remembers there’s a serious situation he needs to take in.

“So Karpov’s…” he starts.

“It’s a shame,” Peggy sighs. “I would have liked to have brought him in. But it’s not unheard of for high-ranking operatives to commit suicide rather than face justice, you know.”

“Yeah, but, not _mobsters_ ,” says Steve, frowning at Peggy.

She holds his gaze, levelly, and is quiet for a moment.

“Well,” she says.

Well. Steve has long suspected there was more to Hydra than traditional mob-type dealings. The relationship between Karpov and Alexander Pierce seems to confirm it, and the way Bucky alluded to the jobs he’d carried out for them makes him wonder just how high-level the information Hydra dealt in has been. But Peggy is keeping things close to her chest for the moment.

“And… what will happen to Pierce?” Bucky asks, anxiously.

“It’s a bit early to say,” Peggy replies. We have a lot of information to process. This will all take time. I would like to talk to you again, though, when we know more.”

Bucky nods. “Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I’m just… Agent Carter, I just want to tell you that I’m… I mean, I’ve been compromised, myself. I was… I worked for him.” Bucky is stuttering a little, and sounds almost ready to vomit out a full confession. Sensing his agitation, Steve cuts him off.

“Bucky, we don’t need to do this now. Right, Peggy?”

Peggy nods, and smiles kindly at Bucky. “James, I already know from Steve about your involvement in Hydra’s affairs, and I’m well aware that you were acting under coercion. Please try not to worry. It’s early days, but I’m certain we will be able to work out a good deal for you in exchange for information.”

Bucky looks at Steve, slightly aghast. 

“Buck, she’s gonna help us,” Steve assures him. “You’ll be OK.”

“If it’s alright with you two,” Peggy says, “I’d like to put you up somewhere safe. We have an apartment uptown where you can go until tomorrow. My instinct is that the danger has passed, but we will send a team with you to make sure you’re safe.”

Steve glances at Bucky, who nods, still ashen-faced.

“Uh, can we go back to my place first?” he asks. “Pick up some stuff?”

“I’m sure that’ll be fine,” Peggy says. “The officers will go with you. I’ll be in touch to let you know when to meet me in the morning.”

*

It’s early evening when Steve and Bucky, along with their three-man security detail, arrive at the FBI-managed apartment in Washington Heights. They had endured an almost comically convoluted drive from Bucky’s place, so that the FBI officers could satisfy themselves that they hadn’t been followed, and now they’re both desperate to be left alone to take stock. Fortunately the officers are content to guard them from outside the apartment. 

The place isn’t flashy, but it’s much bigger than Bucky’s dingy apartment down in Flatbush, and Steve’s place in North London. The décor is bland and the collection of worn paperbacks on the bookshelf is a little bizarre, but it’s clean, warm, and well-supplied.

Steve unthinkingly throws his bag on the floor in the first bedroom they find, and gets a surprise thrill down his spine when Bucky drops his own bag next to it, catching his eye with a smirk. He’s been too preoccupied so far to think about what might happen once they were alone, but suddenly he can’t think about anything else. He’s still staring at the kingsize bed when he hears Bucky’s rapturous moan from the kitchen.

“Steve! There’s fuckin’ pizza and beer in the fridge!” he calls out.

Steve turns to join him. He can’t help but reflect Bucky’s delighted grin, not least because the discovery sparks countless memories of their shared teen years. If it weren’t for the FBI officers outside the door and across the street, he could almost feel like they were on vacation together.

“What kind?” he asks.

“Ugh, like it matters, you fuckin’ hipster,” says Bucky, reopening the fridge and peering inside.

“Holy shit, Whole Foods! There’s a whole bunch of toppings. And… nice! Brooklyn Brewery!”

Steve leans against the door frame and folds his arms, regarding Bucky with a fond smile.

“Thank you, Peggy,” he says. “It’s almost worth getting nearly-poisoned, huh?”

Bucky swings the door shut and looks at Steve with a serious expression. “Whole Foods pizza, though,” he says. “Look, man, I wanna take a shower. And then I want pizza and beer.”

Steve chuckles. “Sure, sure. I’ll put it in the oven. You go.”

 

By the time Bucky re-emerges, barefoot and damp-haired in jeans and a clean shirt, the air is thick with the smell of cheesy, doughy, tomatoey goodness, and an accent of spicy processed meats. He gives Steve a joyous grin as he enters the kitchen.

“Oh my God, you found _pizza_.”

Steve frowns a little. “ _You_ found it, Buck,” he says.

“Yeah? Just occasionally, my shitty memory does me a solid,” shrugs Bucky. He pads across the kitchen floor to slip his arms around Steve’s waist and kiss him, tenderly but firmly, on the lips.  
As he pulls back, he sniggers at Steve’s expression of surprised happiness.

“You’re in a good mood!” Steve says, as he turns to the cupboard to pull out a couple of plates.

“I’m focusing on the positives. Which are… very positive,” Bucky answers, with a hint of shyness that Steve finds devastatingly charming.

“You don’t wanna talk about things?” he asks.

“Let’s not, for tonight,” Bucky replies, almost pleadingly. “Can we just… hang out? Enjoy being safe?”  
Steve’s heart lifts, because he feels safe, too, in a way that perhaps neither of them has for a whole decade. “Sure,” he says.

They take the pizza and beers into the living room, where they take up position on a large and squishy couch, and carry on their endless, non-linear conversation about the past and the future. Steve watches Bucky crinkle up his eyes and laugh, with a new lightness about him. At some points his laughter borders on hysteria, betraying the unspoken relief he must feel at dodging a bullet, only to find that his life may very well be transformed for the better.

Before, Bucky had seemed wretched, even in his happier moments. But Vasily Karpov is dead now, Alexander Pierce is in police custody, and whatever may be ahead, tonight Bucky Barnes is free.

Watching him, happy and relaxed on the couch, Steve can see so much more of the old friend he’d held in his imagination all this time. Bucky’s hair is longer now, his face leaner, but underneath he’s still that confident kid who always stuck by him, for reasons Steve could never quite fathom. The boy he’d wanted to touch so badly, but couldn’t find a way to say so. The idea that he _can_ , now, that his feelings are returned, is going to take a long time to sink in.

It makes Steve fill up with emotion, and he can barely wait for Bucky to set his plate down on the table before crawling across the couch to kiss him, mid-laugh. Their lips are warm and filmy with pizza grease, but it’s licked away in seconds; Bucky moans softly into Steve’s mouth and gives way, easily, allowing himself to sink backward into soft cushions.

He’s still giggling behind the kisses, making Steve smile back at first, but then Bucky’s limbs slide around him and pull him in tight, making his blood rush in his veins and turning his kisses savage. When Steve lets himself bear down, with grinding hips and bruising lips, Bucky pushes him back with wide eyes and a panting grin, but it’s only so that he can suggest they move to the bedroom.

Thirty seconds later, Steve is struggling to yank off his socks while Bucky is clawing at his shirt, trying to pull Steve down on top of him again. Steve’s body is blazing and yearning but his mind is fuzzy. He’s not sure where this is going – they haven’t really talked about it – but he’s already lost the capacity to think clearly. Luckily Bucky sure seems to know what he wants.

“Steve…” he murmurs, and Steve can only moan in response, pushing his tongue back into Bucky’s mouth. Fleetingly, he thinks that a tidal wave could strike New York City right now, and he still wouldn’t be able to drag himself out of this bed.

Their shirts are shed rapidly, and Steve makes a valiant attempt at putting his mouth all over Bucky at once, overwhelmed by the feeling of so much skin. They’re not moving as frantically as the previous night in Brooklyn; more than anything, Steve wants to stay in the moment, and draw out each second against the uncertainty of tomorrow.

Bucky fidgets under him, scrabbling urgently at his jeans pocket, and a moment later he’s reaching for Steve’s hand and pressing scratchy square packets into it, squeezing Steve’s fingers around them without ending the hungry kiss. Steve gasps a chuckle into his mouth at the pre-meditation, murmurs “Yeah?” and Bucky nods, still kissing him, and fumbling at Steve’s fly with trembling hands.

As they wriggle awkwardly out of their pants Steve forces himself to take a breath and slow himself down. He’s suddenly aware of the enormity of this, and has to fight off an attack of nerves when he thinks of how good he needs to make this for Bucky. Luckily for Steve, though, he tends to do his best work under pressure. 

There’s a brief moment, when they’re both naked and Steve’s fingers are finding their way up the soft skin on Bucky’s inner thigh, that time stops and he flashes back to the Coney Island double date. That moment when he and Bucky hung in the air above the boardwalk, and Steve had glanced across nervously, to find that Bucky’s radiant smile almost made him forget where he was, just as they took the plunge. Bucky’s smiling again now, and Steve’s stomach is swooping alright, and it seems so strange that they’re doing this for the first time at twenty-eight.

It’s probably a good thing that Steve’s imagination fell so far short of the reality of making love to Bucky Barnes. Because if he’d known how beautifully Bucky would squirm on his fingers, how desperately he would clutch at Steve’s face and how deeply he would kiss him; if he’d known how it would feel to hear Bucky moan “ _Oh God YES_ ” as Steve pushed slowly into him, and then to catch his eye, wide with embarrassment, as he clapped a hand over his mouth; and how it would be to watch Bucky fight himself, by biting his lip to contain the sounds from his throat, or by burying his face in Steve’s shoulder, biting down on it, or by kissing him to muffle his cries as Steve moved inside him– 

If he could have predicted how his heart would burn to feel Bucky cling to him for dear life, rocking back hard against him to urge him onwards, digging his heels into the small of Steve’s back; or how it would make him quake in awe to watch Bucky finally give in and throw back his head, Steve sucking on his neck while he cursed and moaned and sobbed, and demanded to be fucked ever harder; and to find himself almost thrown out of his own body by the most bone-shaking, soul-soaring orgasm, just as Bucky made a euphoric mess of his own torso….

If he had known that Bucky would fuck like a tornado, and Steve would be spun around and dizzied and thrown into a completely new place…

If he had realised he could feel lost and found at once…

If he had _known_ this, known it like he does now, he probably… he couldn’t… he doesn’t know if… 

If….

If

When he raises his forehead from the pillow, roused by the movement of Bucky’s lips against his shoulder, Steve finds their fingers are intertwined. He hoists himself up, letting his softening cock slip from Bucky’s body, and starts to apologise for crushing him, but Bucky’s hand free hand finds the back of his neck and pulls him back down for a soft, sated kiss. 

Steve’s ears are still ringing with Bucky’s pleas and affirmations, and when their eyes meet again, Bucky looks almost sheepish. His eyes are heavy-lidded and his skin is luminous. He’s so incredibly beautiful Steve wants to frame him, and this bed, and inhabit this moment forever.

He kisses Bucky one more time, before tying off the condom and collapsing back down next to him, to drink in his face. Bucky looks dazed but elated, as he reaches over to stroke fingertips along Steve’s arm to his shoulder, and run them through the damp hair above Steve’s ear. Steve rests a hand on Bucky’s hip, and feels him shiver.

“Huh,” breathes Bucky.

Steve starts to smile, and it grows into an unabashedly goofy grin.

“Huh,” says Bucky again, with a small smile of his own. “Wow. Fuck. Steve, I…” he tails off, his glazed eyes suggesting that he’s forgotten what he was going to say.

“Jesus, you’re amazing,” blurts Steve, and Bucky smiles dumbly back. Slowly they press their foreheads together.

“You good?” Steve asks, which makes Bucky snort.

“You’re just fishing, now,” he says, his fingers still playing with Steve’s hair.

“Well, y’know,” Steve murmurs. “Your feedback is important to me.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I was _maybe_ gonna say,” he sighs, “that I’ve never been fucked like that. _Anything_ like that. But I didn’t want to be crude in such a beautiful moment. And I think it might be kind of obvious.”

“You’re gonna remember it, then?” smirks Steve, although his heart is glowing with pride and tenderness.

Bucky gives him the finger. “I remember _this_ ,” he says, gesturing down at his come-spattered stomach and chest and shaking his head. The gesture is so absolutely Bucky-like that Steve bursts into unrepentant laughter, but he has the grace to get up and find Bucky a washcloth, though his legs feel decidedly rubbery.

“We need to start preparing better,” yawns Bucky, now reasonably clean, as he gets comfortable under the covers.

“We will,” answers Steve into the crook of his neck. 

The feel of Bucky’s body is still new to him, but at the same time it’s as though he’s always known it. As though they fit. There’s a certainty between them that can’t easily be described. They’re exhausted, but neither of them wants to stop touching, and Steve thinks back to their talk at the FBI hours earlier. _We should stick together from now on. Where you go, I go_ , he thinks, _and I don’t much care what anyone else has to say about that_.

Bucky rolls over, away from Steve, who immediately scoots up behind him and wraps an arm around his waist. Bucky was already reaching for Steve’s hand, and he brings it up to hold it against his chest. When Steve wakes up a couple of hours later with a dead arm under him, he rolls onto his back and threads their legs together instead.

*

Peggy calls them back to the FBI HQ at eight the following morning, just as Steve and Bucky are wondering whether they need to talk to their three-man security team about breakfast. She still looks immaculate, but Steve can tell she has barely slept. Still, she manages a broad smile when she sees them.

“Sleep well, boys?” she asks, and instantly has them both blushing and muttering as they take their seats in front of her desk.

“Shall we get straight on with it, then?” Peggy asks. Her manner is still pleasant but it’s obvious she’s not actually interested in gossip. 

“YES” chorus Steve and Bucky.

“So, uh….” begins Steve.

“What’s happening with Pierce?” Bucky cuts in, the relaxed demeanour of the previous night gone again, for now.

Peggy turns to him and takes a big breath, looking him in the eye.

“Well, he was very careful,” she says. “At the very least he’ll lose control of WorldNews, and Rumlow is already rolling on him for the phone hacking business, so we should be able to put him away for a year or two, minimum. It’ll take time for us to go through everything that’s been leaked, but my guess is that we’ll be able to put together a few more charges than that. And now we’ve gone public with the arrest, we’re expecting witnesses to come out of the woodwork.”

She fixes Bucky with a kindly look.

“And some of it will depend on you, James.”

Steve glances across at Bucky. He hadn’t expected to be confronted so soon with Bucky’s role in what was surely going to be a huge and lengthy legal process. Bucky looks pale, but determined.

“Look, I know… I’ll do whatever time I have to. I’m just glad it’s over,” he says.

“If you’re prepared to implicate Rumlow and Pierce, I feel certain we can do a deal,” she replies, then reaches across the desk to take his hand. “You’re not to blame for this, James. If we can prove the association with Karpov was personal, _ideological_ , even; we may even have enough for a treason charge.”

“Oh! Nick Fury can tell you all about that,” Steve assures her. “Like I said on the phone. He’ll tell you Pierce and Karpov go back _years_.”

“Really?” Peggy turns her head sharply to Steve, as if she hadn’t really taken the information in when they spoke before. “Fury, Shield International’s CEO?”

Steve nods vigorously. “I told you this, Peggy. He was friendly with Pierce back in college.”

“I can give you that, too,” says Bucky. “They threatened me. Together.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I wonder….” she begins, before tailing off. “Right. We’ll need full statements from you both.”

They nod. Bucky clears his throat.

“Um, Agent Carter,” he begins again, “Do you think anyone… I mean, Karpov used to talk a lot about my mom…”

Peggy recoils slightly at that, as if annoyed with herself. She clasps her hands and leans forward on her desk, catching Bucky’s eye with a kindly expression. 

“I don’t believe there will be any further threat to your mother,” she says. “We will, of course, take every precaution, but I think the danger to your family is passed.” 

Bucky leans back in his chair and looks up at the ceiling, breathing out through pursed lips.

“While we can’t be too careful at this stage,” Peggy goes on, “I also think that the risk to your own life is probably reduced now. Karpov was the one who wanted to control you, after all. Pierce has so many enemies he wouldn’t know where to start with bumping them off!”

Bucky looks a little green.

“Sorry, sorry. What I’m trying to say it that with Karpov dead, any of his people still out there will only care about saving their own skins. You are, of course, a key threat to Pierce, but I think he’s more likely to try to discredit you in court that eliminate you. After all, he’s lost his link to the murder business now.”

“Jesus, Peggy! Slow down a little, will you?” Steve interjects, sensing Bucky’s anxiety.

“God, I’m sorry,” she says, sitting back. “I’m tired. I wouldn’t usually be talking to you so soon, but given our history…”

“So what’s gonna happen to me?” Bucky asks, sounding slightly more assertive. “I mean, I kinda lost my job recently, and my old boss pretty much hates me…”

Peggy gives an appreciative smile at the gallows humour.

“We’ll look after you, James,” she says, firmly. “I promise we’ll keep you safe until all this is over. I’m just thinking, actually… it’s possible that we can encourage others in a similar position to you to come forward if we go public with your story. Would you be willing to release a media statement about your relationship with Pierce? We could do it anonymously.”

Bucky looks taken aback by the sudden proposal.

“I don’t… can I think about that? It sounds kinda… full-on,” he answers.

Peggy squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head.

“I’m sorry, James. That was a bit pushy. I’m operating at full speed on not much sleep, here. Of course you can think about it. We’ll talk more when things calm down a bit.”

Bucky’s shoulders are still hunched, his posture anxious. It gives Steve a brief twinge of anger towards Peggy, for failing to make him feel better.

She turns to Steve.

“ _You_ , however, my old friend… well. I’m not as concerned for your wellbeing as I was the last time we went after Hydra, but I can’t guarantee your safety in this city at the moment. You have actually testified against them already, remember? I mean, I would be surprised if anything further happened, but I can’t expend any further resources on you when you could be safe in London.”

Steve goes cold, and feels Bucky freeze beside him.

“But… Peg…” he stutters, looking in panic between her and Bucky, who looks just as shellshocked as he feels.

 _We’ve JUST found each other_ , he says, without words. _I promised YESTERDAY we would stick together. You KNOW how it killed me to leave him_.

“You want to make me leave?” he says, unable to restrain the anguish in his voice. “What about Bucky?”

Peggy stares for a second, bringing a hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m thinking on my feet here. I’ve been a bit busy.”

They both stare at her, trying to take in the situation, waiting for an answer.

“James, we’ll have to keep you protected for now, just until the dust settles,” she continues, but Steve can see the cogs whirring. “Unless….”

She looks at Steve, considering. It takes Steve a moment or two, but he almost leaps out of his chair when the realisation hits him. “Unless…” he echoes, before forcing himself to sit down and defer to Bucky.

“It’ll be months until the trial,” says Peggy. “After we’ve taken your statement, we won’t need you back in New York until then.”

Bucky frowns, and Steve can see him working through the idea that he can go anywhere he wants now. He glances over at Steve, still puzzled.

“In fact… you might be best off out of the country all together,” says Peggy, gently.

Still looking at Steve, Bucky’s eyes go wide and his mouth falls open. Steve’s heart is hammering hard, and his head is nodding, almost imperceptibly, willing Bucky to agree.

Bucky turns slowly back to Peggy, swallowing.

“Uh, Ma’am? Would I be able to tell my mother where I’m going?” he asks, his voice catching a little.  
Peggy’s smile expands until it fills the whole room.

“Of course you can,” she says. Steve swears he sees a tear in her eye, which almost threatens to smudge her makeup. “Of _course_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I've posted a few pics illustrating this story on my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/escapologistldn). I just need to sort out the tags properly but #Safe Harbour has lots of Aid Worker Steve and some other things too. I promise I am friendly!
> 
> Also, anyone who found the attempt to poison Bucky and Steve in a restaurant using a rare and radioactive substance a bit too implausible and spy-novelesque might be unaware of what happened to Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko was an agent of the FSB in Russia (the successor to the KGB) who turned dissident, accusing his agency of political assassinations and calling Russia a 'mafia state'. In the early 2000s he and his family were granted asylum in the UK, where he consulted for British intelligence and continued to criticise the Russian government, maintaining that organised crime was rife in the security services and that 'criminal ideology' had now replaced communist ideology.
> 
> In 2006, after meeting with two former KGB agents and having lunch at a sushi restaurant, he fell suddenly and mysteriously ill and was hospitalised. During the three weeks it took him to die slowly from what was found to be radiation poisoning (Polonium-210, to be exact), he gave interviews in which he named his likely murderers and accused those at the highest level of plotting to silence him.
> 
> The inquiry into the affair was finally published last year, and concluded that the plan to assassinate Litvinenko was 'probably' approved by Putin himself. The whole story actually makes fascinating reading, if you're interested in that sort of thing. 
> 
> Of course, my lovely Muscovite (Moskvitchka?) reader Aprille may have a different insight into all this, and I'd be very happy to hear from her (?) on it if so!


	17. The Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky joins Steve in London, and they set about fitting together.
> 
> Their various issues continue to behave like those ghosts in Super Mario, which sneak up when you stop watching them.  
> YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE GHOSTS FOR TOO LONG, BOYS.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God it has been SO LONG since I updated. Sorry about that, I wish it could be quicker but for some reason I've found this chapter really difficult. Not because of any drama - if anything, the opposite. I hope I've got it right, but I've reached the point where I can't tweak it any more!
> 
> I've also been sooo busy with returning to work, family stuff etc. Am currently super exhausted and have such a tiny amount of spare time for writing, but I manage to do a little bit almost every day, for my sanity!
> 
> Anyway I offer my humblest thanks to every reader and will buy a drink for everyone who has kudosed me, especially the people who have hit the button in the last few weeks and given me strength to write on! YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST OK?

**Brooklyn, 2006**

“How about this?” Bucky asked, shoving his homework to one side and leaning back against the couch from his spot on the floor. “We finish college. You’re working at the UN, I’m… taking pictures of… food, for some shitty catalogue. We get a bit of dough and we take a trip. Where are we going?”

“I’m sure you’ll have more exciting vacation buddies than me by then,” Steve grumbled, but he knew he was fishing slightly.

Bucky balled up a sheet of paper and threw it deftly at Steve’s head, striking him square on the temple. “Shut up, I’m talking about you and me taking a trip. Where would you go?” 

“I dunno,” Steve said, dropping his highlighter pen and stretching his arms behind his head. “I haven’t thought about it a whole lot.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“I mean, mom’s not gonna make it to Hawaii now…”

Bucky looked down at the floor, then met Steve’s eyes again, without pity or fear. No matter how hard Steve challenged him, he never disappointed.

“And, uh… it has, y’know, I would want to be warm, but have palm trees to sit under? With nothing to do but chill the fuck out,” he continued.

“Hmmm. Steve Rogers, chilling the fuck out,” mused Bucky. “I’ll have to come with, just to see that.”

Steve laughed. Bucky could mock all he wanted: it only ever engulfed him in warmth.

“OK, I’ll do, like a photo essay about climate change and shit, and you can draw the palm trees and the sea, and we’ll see who has more time to ‘chill the fuck out.’”

Steve gave him the finger, and Bucky grinned, palms aloft in placation. “OK man, we’ll go to Hawaii.”

“Well, where would you go that’s so much better?” Steve retorted. 

Bucky sighed. “I dunno, it sounds kinda dumb.”

Steve looked at him, expectantly.

“I… think I wanna see London,” he said. “I mean, it’s like here, but really different at the same time? All the history? They got, like, Roman stuff and… what?”

Steve blinked a dangerously fond smile off his face.

“That could be fun,” he nodded, furrowing his brow. “Can’t get any colder than here, I guess.”

“We’re going in the summertime, dummy,” Bucky grinned, and Steve hid the glow of his cheeks by skulking off to get sodas.

*

**London, 2016**

In the end, it’s October, and Steve ends up making the flight alone.

It takes a matter of hours for Steve to tell the agents everything he knows, but it’s obvious from the wide eyes, pale faces and hushed conversations around Bucky that he has a lot more to spill. Steve doesn’t know any details, beyond those that Bucky shared with him back at the bar in Haiti, but there’s an unfortunate moment where the voice of a somewhat green junior agent is heard from around a corner exclaiming “That was HIM?” and Bucky can’t sit still for squirming and fidgeting.

With Bucky so agitated, Steve is even less receptive to the suggestion that he go back to London immediately.

“I won’t leave without him, Peg.” 

Steve’s jaw is set for battle, but she is the only one outside of Bucky and Sarah who has ever been able to make him back down. Besides, her bloodshot eyes and husky voice remind him of what he’s put her through in the recent past.

“He has a lot to tell us, Steve,” she says, “not to mention the medical checks and my agency’s endless bureaucratic nonsense. He’ll be in good hands.” 

Steve’s mouth is already open, about to argue, but there’s a tired tension in her voice he’s not used to. When he hesitates, she goes further: “We could do without the extra risk. Both of us.”

That’s when it sinks in, finally – that his continued presence in New York could do more harm than good. Sparing Bucky any further danger is the only reason he agrees to leave, and even then it’s on the understanding that Bucky will be with him within a week.

When it comes to it, though, leaving is even harder than he thought. The pull of home is stronger than it ever was the last time he flew out of New York at eighteen, all numb and righteous and determined. This time he’s softened and bruised, has dared to allow himself to imagine what it might be like to live with love again. He feels like a rubber band, stretched to its limit, wanting nothing more than to snap back into place.

Adrenaline carries him almost all the way home. But when the cab turns down his darkened street, he starts to feel that buoyant emptiness in his stomach, that darkness in his chest. The post-mission comedown is always painful, but this time it feels plain wrong. Whereas before Steve’s missing pieces would needle him, and propel him forward, it now feels as though he’s lacking half the sky AND a good part of the edges. He can’t stand it. He and Bucky shouldn’t be apart any more.

Without him, Steve’s on pause again. He’d been ready to collapse anyway, he realises, even before the soul-soaring highs and gut-wrenching lows of the past week, and he doesn’t know how to stop, unwind, let it play out.

*

“You’re alive?”

Natasha’s voice, coming through on a half-second delay, sounds tentative and hoarse.

Steve smiles, moved to hear her again. It’s only been a week since he’s seen her, but so much has happened it feels like a different world.

“You know me, Nat,” he replies. “Nobody’s got the jump on me yet.”

There’s a silence.

“I, uh.. I should’ve known you’d go rushing off to New York,” she says. “I just… I can’t believe…”

“Don’t worry.” Steve cuts her off. “I’m fine! We’re fine. It’s gonna be good.”

“And Alexander Pierce?” she asks, her voice edged with venom.

“Peggy says the evidence against him is strong,” Steve says. “They’re building the case, obviously. There’s a pretty damning paper trail, thanks to the leak, but they need witnesses. S’why Bucky’s still there.”

“Hm,” says Natasha. “They need people to testify on the Hydra connection.”

“Yeah. But they got time.”

“Hm.”

She doesn’t say anything else.

“You OK?” Steve asks her. “How’s it going out there?”

She sighs.

“It’s good. We finally sorted out the supply issue. People are getting what they need again. We’ve gotta get through the clear-up but I think we’ll soon be into medium-term recovery. Community’s doing great.”

She pauses.

“The hospital. That was… rough.”

Steve hears her, the way she hears him whenever a situation goes south.

“Hey,” he says. “We save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn’t mean everybody.”

“Yeah,” she says. “We do what we can.”

“We do what we can,” he repeats.

Another silence.

“So guess what,” Steve says, brighter now.

“What.” 

“Bucky’s coming here. To stay.”

“Really? Oh my God, Steve, that’s great,” she says. This time he can hear a smile in her voice. “Are you gonna let him force you to have fun?”

Steve laughs, at himself, at the absurdity of the entire situation.

“You’re a good friend, Nat. Thank you.”

“Love you too, darling. See you at Christmas.”

“If we’re lucky,” she says. 

She means to make a joke of her Russian pessimism, but as Steve hangs up the phone, he’s starting to wonder about the whole concept of luck.

*

Banned from the office, Steve seeks solace in the gym, and spends a lot of time walking around the city, trying to burn off nervous energy. He’s seeing the old buildings with new eyes, now; excited to show them to Bucky, trying to have faith that they’ll be together again soon. He tells himself he waited ten years, once, and that he can handle a few more days. Bucky’s in safe hands.

They exchange messages and talk on the phone when Bucky gets the chance, but it’s obvious he’s exhausted – the effort of digging up so many memories is draining, and, Steve can tell, pretty dispiriting for him. He tries Peggy once, ready to demand news of Bucky’s likely departure date, but within two minutes he’s meekly agreeing not to ask again.

“I’m lonely,” he’d blurted to Bucky, almost at the instant he had realised it himself. But now, as he waits for their reunion, the loneliness grows painfully acute. At night he barely sleeps, and he can’t stomach much food beyond fruit and maybe a little flatbread and hummus. The peace he’d started to feel, underneath the reckless joy of Bucky, has ebbed away again.

He cleans his apartment, more thoroughly ever before, clears drawer and wardrobe space for Bucky’s stay, and tries to stock up on things Bucky will want, like frozen pizzas and wipe-clean wall planners. What else does Bucky like now? He realises, with an anxious twinge, that he really doesn’t know: their time together has been so limited, so pressured, that in many ways they’ll be starting from scratch.

It turns out that Sam is back, too, for a few weeks. Shield reinforcements have arrived in Haiti to support Natasha, and Fury has asked Sam to cover for Steve in London. And that may not be all. From the frequent contact his colleague is making, Steve suspects Sam may have a wider mission brief than just running things from the office.

He can’t bring himself to care too much whether Sam’s keeping tabs on him, though. He needs company sometimes. And while he may be exiled from the office, he’s still welcome at the Hope and Anchor. Hanging out with Sam gives him a lift, helps him to feel calmer, and talking about Bucky makes him positively cheerful.

“I can’t believe you went straight to New York, you fucking nutter,” says Sam. He shakes his head and laughs at the same time.

“Ah, man, it was just fantastic. Just being in Brooklyn again, with Bucky... Sometimes I could forget the last ten years even happened,” Steve grins back. In Bucky’s absence, even talking about him helps to quell his agitation. “It was like I… felt _alive_ over there.”

“Until some nutjob tried to kill you.” The East London diction can sound aggressive on some; on Sam, it just sounds constantly amused. 

“He wasn’t a nutjob. He was a pro,” Steve smirks. “Not a terribly good one, either.”

“How are you so blasé about all this?” Sam asks, pouring some dry roasted peanuts into his hand.

It’s a fair question: Steve knows that most people who had recently dodged an attempted murder and would later be participating in a high-profile federal trial would not appear to be as cheerful as he is right now. He shrugs.

“Cos it means Bucky’s coming here.” 

Sam smiles, knowingly, as he chews his nuts with an open mouth.

“So you and him…”

Steve raises an eyebrow and takes a long pull on his pint.

“I’ve always been in love with him, Sam.” 

He keeps his eyes trained on the TV in the corner, affecting nonchalance, but can’t help darting a glance at his friend.

Sam rolls his eyes and folds his arms.

“You don’t say.”

Steve pulls a sarcastic face, and they both smile, relieved to have acknowledged it out loud.

“And he’s gonna stay with you?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, of course,” Steve replies, frowning, sucking away a beer foam mustache with his bottom lip.

“Even though you’ve only spent a few very weird days with him in ten years?”

“Yeah, but…”

“And you haven’t shared your living space with anyone in all that time? As long as I’ve known you, you haven’t had a relationship that’s lasted more than, what, a month?”

“Look, I know it seems insane, but… I don’t know what else to tell you, man.” Steve says. “This is _Bucky_.”

“I’m just saying, you’re both probably a bit different now. I mean, this poor guy sounds utterly traumatised. And you have a lot of shit to deal with too.”

“I _know_ ,” Steve snaps back. “I know. We’re… I’m gonna handle it.”

“Glad to hear it,” says Sam, mirroring Steve’s slurp of his pint.

There’s a silence, during Sam holds Steve’s gaze and Steve returns it, defiant, until he blinks and looks down at his phone.

“I’m just saying…” starts Sam again. Steve looks at him sharply, but doesn’t cut him off.

“You realise, don’t you,” he continues, “It’s not… like, it’s not a quick fix? Him being here is not going to sort your crap out by magic. Or his.”

Steve regards him impassively. “Yeah, I know,” he says, still a little defensive but trying not to sound it.

There’s another silence.

“So anyway,” Sam continues, changing the subject. “I’ve, sort of, been talking to Oscalie a lot…”

“Oh, really? How’s the mission going?” Steve asks offhandedly, looking around the room.

“Uh, fine? Actually we’re talking off the books, too…”

“She’s great,” Steve cuts in, finally looking back at Sam. “So competent. We’re lucky to work with her.”

“Uh, I know? I…”

“Do you feel like another?”

Sam shrugs, giving up. “Yeah, please mate.”

Steve is already half-standing, but glances up when he hears Sam’s tone. “Whassup, man?”

“Nothing, nothing. Go to the bar. Go on.”

Steve smiles. “Bucky looks at me like that sometimes. When I’m being an asshole.”

Sam can’t help but laugh at that. “You’re always being an arsehole, mate. You’re lucky to have me. Off you go, you can compensate me with beer.”

*

It’s been six days of veering wildly between full-on anxiety and nervous anticipation, and Steve has finally dozed off in the early hours, only to be woken at 6am by the rhythmic buzz of a new message.

**Bucky** : I’m done! They’re putting me on a plane in the morning! X

The morning. Steve’s wide awake in an instant, and poring over airline timetables to find all the possible flights that Bucky could be on. Four hours later, another message confirms the details.

He has hours before he can reasonably leave for the airport, so he tries to relax, but he can’t keep still for too long, can’t let The Fear settle. He cleans the apartment AGAIN, changes his shirt three times, books a streetcar, upgrades it to a better one, looks in the mirror for longer than he ever has before in his life, panics that he hasn’t bought beer, runs to the corner shop to get some, and almost makes himself late leaving.

London traffic is the worst. The car stops and starts, and Steve can feel the thud of his heart all the way to Heathrow. When he gets the chance he drives too fast, and slams the wheel in frustration in the short stay carpark.

By the time he strides into the arrivals hall, Bucky’s flight is half an hour out. Steve exhales heavily, makes his way to a coffee stand and then paces the full length of the hall a few times.

He’s been in this airport more times than he can remember. The very first time he walked through Arrivals, ten years ago, he’d been with Peggy Carter, who actually scheduled a vacation with family in England so that she could be the one to bring him over. That day was still very vivid in Steve’s memory. He could visualise his skinny, determined, orphaned, 18-year-old self, striding out of the gate, without nerves or excitement at moving to a new city; only the numbness of grief and the steel of resolve.

In the intervening years he’s passed through this soulless space in various states of urgency, determination and exhaustion: a tidal wave, an earthquake, a famine, an outbreak. London has welcomed him more warmly every time he comes back, but has still never quite felt like home.

He glances up at the arrivals board. Bucky’s flight is expected in fifteen minutes.

Those minutes tick by at an excruciatingly slow pace. Steve goes to the bathroom. He fiddles with his phone. There’s an article on the imminent US election, which is causing controversy all over the world thanks to the staggering bigotry, obtuseness and under-qualification of the Republican candidate, but Steve can’t concentrate: he reads introduction four times before giving up.

He glances again at the display.

**Flight BA178 New York (JFK) ……………………………………………. LANDED**

Shit! 

Steve flounders a little, then strides over to the barrier where people have gathered to greet loved ones, or pick up passengers. 

His mind is whirring. To one side he glimpses a young man with a bunch of flowers, hastily purchased from the airport florist. Should he have got Bucky flowers? Did Bucky like flowers? Would that be too much? Why did he not even think about this? Was Sam right? Should he have thought more carefully about having Bucky stay with him? 

Familiar anxiety spirals under Steve’s skin, and as always, he holds it inside, standing still among the chauffeurs and mini-bus drivers, relatives and friends. Too late now. Bucky’s almost here.

One by one, and then in a flood, passengers from New York begin to appear around the corner. Steve is craning his neck, and suddenly, as if it were totally normal, there he is. There’s Bucky, hat pulled down low, with a backpack as well as a pull-along suitcase. Dark jeans, a dark red shirt. His eyes are puffy and tired, but he’s beautiful as all hell. 

Steve’s stomach almost turns inside out at the sight of him, and his jitters morph into that _good_ kind of nervous, where you know everything’s going to be OK after all. Bucky’s a lifeboat. A light _house_. A beam of light in a dark night.

Steve sucks in a sharp, involuntary breath and raises his hand, leaving it floating dumbly in the air for some seconds until Bucky scans his way, clocks him, and cracks a smile so radiant that it seems to transform not just his face, but the world around him. 

That smile had always made Steve feel funny. That smile, when he surprised his friend, or told him good news, or said something funny, or stood up for someone. He’d do any of these things, just to be the one to put that smile on Bucky’s face. 

Bucky wasn’t smiling much in Haiti. In New York he’d softened, allowing a wry curl to his lips, blossoming into a fleeting grin during their more intimate moments, but this is the real deal. His eyes widen, then crinkle at the corners, his nose scrunches up in delight, his cheeks pull up with a clear and genuine kind of happiness that has Steve reeling. It bestows a sense of belonging that no-one else can give him. He had been looking for that smile, he knows now, and he could almost cry at the realisation of how much he’s missed it.

So many times Bucky has slipped through his grasp, or turned away. It feels like a happy ending already, watching Bucky come towards him this time.

He rushes to the end of the barrier and stands off to one side. Bucky quickens his step and jogs the last few paces, dropping his backpack to the floor and letting go of his suitcase just in time to crash hard into Steve’s welcoming form.

Steve sways a little, his knees buckling, but soon recovers enough presence to wrap his arms around Bucky’s back. It’s like being plugged in, coming back to life. Steve just needs to hold on a _little_ longer, just until he feels steady.

Bucky pulls back slightly. “Hi,” he grins, through his eyelashes. He’s breathing fast, and Steve realises that he is, too.

“Hey,” he murmurs, his voice coming from somewhere low and deep. “How was yourmmm…”

The end of his question is muffled out by the sudden press of Bucky’s lips against his, and the kiss feels like peace and safety and homecoming. He might press Bucky even closer to him, might let his hands wander further downwards… but for the excited shriek of a woman, right behind them, leaping into the arms of the bouquet-wielding man.

Bucky turns to look, then back to Steve with a smile. “Where are my flowers, huh?” He asks, scratching his fingertips into the back of Steve’s neck.

“I got you a really cool rental car,” Steve replies. “And this.” He drops his hand from Bucky’s waist and delves into his shoulder bag, bringing out an object wrapped in tin foil. Bucky’s eyes go wide.

“Oh my GOD, a sandwich? You’re the _best_ , Steve.”

*

They’re both as excited as each other on the car ride back to Steve’s: delirious, almost. Steve feels light-headed, full of unquestioning optimism. In spite of their mutual lack of sleep, they chatter animatedly all the way over the Westway, and onto the Marylebone Road.

“Sorry, can I…” he starts, taking out his phone as they pass Regents Park.

“Hey, you don’t have to ask any more, OK?” says Steve, glancing over at him, then smiling at the road ahead while Bucky snaps a picture.

Bucky’s quiet after that, looking down at his camera roll, so Steve takes a chance and asks, gently, “How’d it go, then? With Peggy?”

“I don’t…” Bucky snaps, then sighs, “…really wanna talk about it, if that’s cool.”

“Sure, sure man,” said Steve immediately, anxious to preserve the good feeling between them. They don’t need to talk about it. Do they need to talk about it? Steve’s not really sure. Probably not.

Bucky relaxes again when he realises Steve won’t push him. 

“God, it feels so good to be outta there, I can’t tell you,” he exhales, looking out of the window at Camden Town.

“And here I thought you were happy to see me,” Steve smiles back, a little needy.

Bucky doesn’t answer right away, but Steve can feel his eyes on him, so he steals a glance and is met with a look that says, “Come on, man.” He turns back to the road with a grin.

*

It’s early evening and the streetlights are lit when Steve manoeuvres into a space not far from his apartment block in Kentish Town. It’s mild, for October; warmer than Brooklyn, anyway.

“So this is it,” Steve says, waving one hand up at the Victorian-era building as he grabs Bucky’s suitcase with the other.

“Wow, Steve, this is great,” Bucky marvels. “Spray it brown and it looks like Brooklyn, huh?”

Steve shrugs, remembering the estate agent’s despair at his refusal to view any of the new-build apartments she was desperate to shift.

His bunch of keys lets them through the heavy front door of the building, and then past the iron gate covering the door to his apartment, as well as the three separate locks on the door itself. 

“Woah, paranoid much?” says Bucky.

“Don’t mean they’re not after me,” Steve replies, aiming for dark humour but ending up a little on the dark side. Bucky seems to check himself, and can clearly be seen mouthing ‘fuck’ as Steve pushes the door open.

He’s been here for so long he doesn’t even see the place anymore, so it arrests him a little to look at his home through Bucky’s eyes and realise how closely he’s recreated his mother’s New York apartment. The furniture, which he mostly picked up second-hand, has a spindly, mid-century feel. There’s a lot of wood and he’s even put down a rug that’s not unlike the one Sarah used to love so much.

The obvious difference, he sees now, is the absence of pictures on the walls. Those, along with most of the other stuff from his Brooklyn tenement, are in dusty boxes, locked up in a storage facility somewhere in Queens. Usually the witness protection programme would have sold everything, but Peggy, seeing that Steve was in no condition to part with all of his mother’s possessions, did him yet another favour and kept it all.

Bucky wanders over to the bookcase and runs a finger over the spines of chunky volumes on history and geopolitics, biographies and the odd contemporary novel. He pauses when he comes across the ‘humour’ section, containing cartoon and comic strip compendiums.

“Oh my God, you used to LOVE this,” he says, pulling out a Calvin and Hobbes book. “You were old school even as a teenager, man,” he grins, flipping through the pages. The easy familiarity, the unshakeable _rightness_ of Bucky in his apartment, in his _life_ , has Steve standing still and staring for a good long minute before he can clear his throat.

“So, I know you had a sandwich earlier, but, do you want some dinner? I could, uh, cook you something?”

Bucky nods excitedly. “I’ll help! I’ve done ten years in the soup kitchen. I’m a fucking _great_ chopper.”

Steve renovated his kitchen himself, and he still gets a kick out of the white units, dark surfaces and green brick-shaped tiles he chose. The high ceilings and large windows allow for a lot of natural light and it’s a pretty good size for a London apartment – big enough to accommodate Steve’s precious island in the middle, which has two stools tucked underneath, even though he’s rarely had a use for more than one. 

“Wow, nice kitchen,” is all Bucky needs to say, and Steve suddenly realises how badly he has wanted to share it, to have company to cook for, or chat to over coffee and eggs, or argue over dishwasher etiquette with. He’s been waiting for _this_ , he knows, and he was probably going to… God knows how long he would have waited.

He reaches up to pull some pans from a cupboard, and as he does so Bucky squeezes past him, holding him by the hips and brushing a soft kiss against the back of his neck. Steve is so unprepared he nearly drops the saucepan. He grins over at Bucky, who doesn’t meet his eye, his cheeks a little flustered.

“Knives in here?” he asks, scrabbling at a drawer.

So Bucky chops, and Steve stir-fries, and his rice turns out fluffy, and the sauce he cobbles together tastes great, and Bucky loves the beer, and the conversation and laughter flow, and nostalgia blurs so easily into domestic contentment that Sam’s words of caution fade into the background.

They do the dishes as the radio plays, and Bucky wanders over to the couch while Steve finishes putting them away. Already he’s feeling nervous excitement bubble up as the evening stretches out before them. Bucky had kissed him at the airport, and their physical rapport feels more intimate now than it did even a week previously in New York, let alone years ago, when they did no more than hug. Admittedly they have had some extremely amazing sex during their reunion, but Steve doesn’t want to assume anything. Bucky’s had a rough week, and he’s been travelling all day.

Which isn’t to say he’s not desperately hopeful that Bucky will want to… that Bucky will want to. All of a sudden he feels weirdly nervous and drags his feet a little, taking his time over drying his hands.

When he catches sight of Bucky from the doorway, his breath catches and his stomach flips. Bucky is just sitting, looking down at his phone. His hair is longer now, but otherwise his mannerisms are just as they were at 18; the way he spreads his legs slightly, hunches his shoulders, the splay of his fingers on his thigh… Steve’s artist’s brain had absorbed every detail back then, committed them to permanent memory. Now, he could almost be looking at his High School crush on his mother’s couch in Brooklyn, when the fantasy of making out with Bucky was almost more than his brain could handle. Except that now, he gets to…

And right then, after everything, after all the surreal drama of the past week, and the grief and half-life of his London years, Steve can’t believe he’s got this lucky.

Bucky looks up with the kind of knowing, flirtatious expression that would just about have _killed_ teenage Steve, if he’d ever managed to get himself on the other end of it. He adjusts his position slightly, flinging an arm over the back of the couch.

When Steve sinks down next to him, Bucky doesn’t leave room for doubt. He slides over and wraps himself around Steve’s side in an instant, grinning, and rests his head on Steve’s shoulder. Bucky’s not small, but Steve scoops him up, pulls him in, his heart accelerating. They breathe together for a minute.

“Thank you,” Bucky murmurs.

Steve is taken aback. He can’t think why Bucky would thank him. He just squeezes him a little bit tighter.

“I just… fuck. I dunno,” Bucky says.

“Hey, tell me,” Steve coaxes him.

“I was just thinkin’, if you’d told me a month ago that Pierce would get arrested and Karpov would be gone, I would… I mean, it sounds terrible, but I’d have been… _glad_.”

Steve nods.

“Yeah. That’s totally understandable,” he says. “Those assholes were… what they did to you was evil.”

“But that’s not it,” Bucky cuts in. “I’d have been happy with that. I wouldn’t have dared to hope for that. But if…”

He pauses.

“God, I’m sorry, this is so…”

“S’alright,” Steve says, stroking Bucky’s cheek with his thumb, not sure what he’s trying to say. 

Bucky tries again.

“Look. If I’d have known I’d have _this_ , that I’d be _here_ , and that, y’know, you and me… I mean, I was sure I’d never see you again.”

The tip of Steve’s nose tingles and he breaks out in goosebumps. He takes a breath to respond, but holds it for a second, squeezing his eyes shut and swallowing.

“I know,” he says, eventually. “I can’t believe it.” His words feel embarrassingly inadequate, but he can’t muster any more right now.

Bucky curls into him tighter. “Course, I know we got a hell of a lot of shit to deal with,” he says, “But… I guess I wanted to tell you I… That I’m.. happy. That we’re here.”

Steve squeezes his eyes tighter, and when he opens them, he has to blink away moisture.

“Oh my God,” he says, his voice hoarse. “So am I.”

Bucky smiles. His head rests heavily against Steve’s chest for a quiet minute.

“Hey, are you tired? Wanna go to bed?” Steve asks, raking slightly shaky fingers through Bucky’s hair, revelling in the closeness.

“No, and yes.” he replies.

Steve takes a second to understand his meaning, and laughs out loud when he gets it.

“I’m jet-lagged!” Bucky grins, wolfishly. “I’m gonna find it _real hard_ to get to sleep tonight.”

He snakes a hand around Steve’s waist, under his shirt.

“That’s interesting ‘cos… I’m an insomniac,” Steve murmurs, turning towards him. 

There’s a pause, and then Bucky cracks up laughing. His face is radiant, like it was at the airport, and Steve is so lovesick he can’t even bring himself to be offended.

“Is that your best line?” Bucky chuckles. “Did you learn nothing from me on those awkward high school dates?”

Steve pretends to consider.

“ _Some_ stuff,” he growls, leaning in to shut Bucky up with a searing kiss.

*

His lips. Steve could draw them blindfolded. Parted in wistful contemplation; bitten coyly behind his top teeth, stretched around a sunshine smile. Teasing, confessing, snarking, forming dirty words and cries of pleasure. And now, Steve can touch them with his own. Feel their soft, sinful suck against his neck. Kiss them a hundred times, from tender to flirty to full-on lusty, to try and make Bucky understand all the ways Steve wants to love him.

It’s strange, Steve thinks, that their first kiss was only a couple of weeks ago, but there’s not a false move between them. Their bodies seem to know each other; to respond with all the excitement of new lovers, underpinned by the trust of old friends. In other words, it’s rare, and completely intoxicating.

By the time they’ve staggered into Steve’s room, they’re already too fired up to stop kissing long enough to strip. They bump knees and elbows in their rush to disrobe, their self-conscious laughter disappearing into moans once hands meet uninterrupted skin.

“Christ, this fuckin’ _body_ ,” pants Bucky, skimming Steve’s chest with his fingertips before lunging forward to mouth hungrily at a nipple. Steve gasps, feeling the scrape of Bucky’s teeth and the muscular caress of his tongue ricochet down to his groin. He’s already slipping out of control. He wants so badly to make it _good_ , for it to be so amazing and beautiful that Bucky will understand, will know he belongs here, with Steve. But once they start to touch, his mind jettisons all thoughts but _want_ and _more_ and _Bucky_. 

It’s never been like this, really. Steve’s connected with people before through sex, but he’s never quite got past the need to look for constant reassurance, and perform his pleasure to show his partner that things are just /em>great. He’s never just let his mouth say what it wants, let his body do what it wants, the way it does automatically with Bucky. Never found such depth of recognition in another’s eyes, or felt pleasure so great he really cannot hold it back.

He’s trembling with the hugeness of it all, as he kisses Bucky onto his back. But Bucky’s trembling too. He goes easily, limbs sliding around Steve’s hips and shoulders, hooking him close, mouth constantly seeking Steve’s. It only takes Steve a second to fumble for lube in a dusty drawer before he returns, kissing his way down Bucky’s torso, making him squirm. 

It’s a hell of a thing, he thinks, to find himself here. To be mouthing his way around Bucky Barnes’s straining erection, relishing his musky scent, drawing such delicious sounds from him. It’s thrill, yeah – an almost unbelievable one – but it’s a serious business, too. He absolutely has to do a good job of this.

Bucky’s hands fidget weakly with the sheets, unsure of what to do with themselves. Steve pauses, sucking teasingly at the delicate skin at the tops of Bucky’s thighs, and glances up to see that Bucky has settled on clamping a finger between his teeth.

“You can make as much noise as you like, you know,” Steve grins, and Bucky huffs a breathless sound, like a nervous laugh, which turns into a blurted “WoooOOOOAAAAH!” when Steve suddenly swallows him down without warning. 

It’s a daydream come true, for Steve, finally getting his mouth on Bucky’s dick, and nothing about it disappoints. He moves slow, happy to ignore the ache that builds in his jaw and let drool run down his chin if it means he can listen to Bucky’s mindblown cries, watch him grip the bedsheets and hear him mutter “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuuuuck…” as he fights to keep his hips still.

“I’m just trynna relax you,” Steve grins, letting one hand take over while the other reaches up between Bucky’s legs, searching for his entrance with slicked fingers. 

“Well, it’s NOT WORKING!” Bucky yelps, his body already damp with sweat.

Steve laughs. He may be pretty amped up but Bucky’s not tense; he accepts Steve’s finger easily, with a shuddering moan, spreads his legs and bends his knees so he can push back into the touch. It would make Steve feel godlike, he thinks, if he wasn’t such a horny mess himself. 

Wait. Bucky’s trying to say something.

“Hey, can we… uh…. huh… kiss some more? Please?” he gasps out, as his hips rock by themselves.

Oh God, of course! Steve is up there like lightning, cursing himself for ever failing to kiss Bucky. It’s just as well. Bucky’s kiss is like rampant, merciless wildfire when Steve’s got fingers in him; a wordless love letter full of utter filth alongside romantic protestations. When Steve finally composes himself enough to push his cock all the way home, it’s impossible to tell whether he’s more turned on by his own overwhelming pleasure, or by Bucky’s ecstatic reaction.

Bucky Barnes. The hottest guy in school, and without question the hottest guy Steve’s ever met, lying quivering on his back, clutching at Steve’s shoulders, gripping him tightly with his legs. Eyes closed, his face cycling through enraptured expressions.

It’s not something he’ll ever be clear-headed enough to describe. This sensation of burying himself completely in Bucky’s body, and moving there, in great oceanic rolls of the hips. Feeling so totally overcome with arousal and emotion, and seeing the same thing reflected in the face he’s adored ever since he was young.

“ _FUCK_ , you feel so good,” he hears himself growl, his lips pushed right up against Bucky’s ear. “So _fucking_ good, baby”. He moves on instinct, gripping Bucky’s hips, hitching his legs higher up around Steve’s waist so he can go deeper, harder, make Bucky’s eyes roll back.

Bucky doesn’t answer with words, just urgent moans, clawing fingers and increasingly desperate thrusts. He’s so beautiful and raw, and thank God for condoms, because without one Steve’s sure he’d have come long ago. As it is he’s been right on the edge for longer than he thought possible.

And he’s really not going to be able to stay there much longer. Somehow he finds the presence of mind to pull back and aim for Bucky’s prostate. 

“Oooh fuck yes, LIKETHAT,” tumbles from Bucky’s gasping mouth. His words give Steve a rush so strong that his rhythm stutters while he drags himself off the brink of orgasm. He can’t process it. Can’t _think_.

“You getting close?” he blurts. Bucky nods, frantically, and his hand leaves Steve’s neck, moving down so he can jerk himself off. But Steve doesn’t let it happen.

As soon as he clocks what Bucky’s doing, Steve _knows_ , with absolute certainty, that if anyone’s gonna be touching Bucky’s dick right now, it’s gonna be him.

“Nuh-uh,” he pants. Without another thought, without even breaking the rhythm, he grabs Bucky’s hand and pins it on the pillow above his head. Somewhere in his instincts he just wants to hold Bucky _still_ , jerk him off _himself_ , but…

He doesn’t get the chance. 

When he grabs the other arm, and slams Bucky’s crossed wrists down with more force than he intended, their eyes meet in an electric stare and the jolt between the two of them is an unexpected shock. 

Steve gasps like he’s grabbed a live wire. Bucky _howls_ , shooting volleys of come all the way to the headboard.

It’s the look of amazement on Bucky’s face, the look that Steve put there, that finally wrecks him. He blazes with it, all the way up to his chest, into his thighs; coming like he can’t even remember. He can’t quite keep eye contact, but he’s still completely and totally immersed in Bucky. Bucky filling all his senses.

It’s pretty overwhelming, and not brief; by the time they’ve both untensed and quieted, Steve feels utterly wrung out. He clumsily seeks Bucky’s mouth with his own, and finds his kiss tenderly, if feebly, returned.

“Wow,” he breathes.

Bucky just nods.

“You OK?” Steve asks.

There’s a pause, filled by panting breaths.

“Guuuuuh,” Bucky replies, eventually.

Steve smiles. Bucky winces as he pulls out of him, glancing upward, and Steve realises he still has Bucky’s wrists squeezed tightly in his grip.

“Oh! Sorry,” he blusters. “Just, hold on, I…”

He gets rid of the condom while Bucky strokes slowly at his wrist, looking around with a dazed expression. When Steve flops back down next to him, he practically melts into Steve’s arms and won’t stop kissing him. Eventually they slow down, loosen their limbs, feel sleep encroaching.

Steve’s hallway there when he thinks he hears Bucky say “Steve –“.

He thinks he murmurs an answer, but he doesn’t think there’s any more. Bucky’s there in his arms, so everything’s wonderful.

*

With their clothes on, they start to relearn each other. Steve likes to wake early and exercise, Bucky likes to sleep in. Steve doesn’t keep sugar in the house, but Bucky can’t contemplate coffee without it. Steve will do anything to make Bucky feel welcome, and Bucky is painstakingly unobtrusive and grateful. It’s not quite how things were, Steve thinks, but it doesn’t have to be. Bucky was always polite, but never quite this self-effacing, especially in the Rogers house. 

They kiss a lot, more than is strictly dignified, but it doesn’t stop giving Steve a thrill. The earnest, gawky teenager inside him wants to hi-five a whole stadium every time Bucky smiles against his lips, or grabs his ass, or raises a come-hither eyebrow in his direction.

Steve delights in showing Bucky around the city, and the places and things that he mildly enjoyed before have now become wildly exciting. Over the course of the first few weeks takes Bucky to his haunts: Soho, where everyone’s equal, from drag queens to pop stars to theatre goers to tattoo artists; Vauxhall, where the legendary gay clubs cater for all tastes; Columbia Road flower market, where he chickens out of buying Bucky a rose and grabs him a cactus instead; the British Museum, where the faces of the Empire-plundered Elgin marbles stare back with frozen expressions; Hampstead Heath, where you can swim naked in the ponds if the weather is good, and you can see all the way across London; Highgate Cemetery, where you can pay your respects to Karl Marx and Christina Rossetti and Alexander Litvinenko; the Photographer’s Gallery, the South Bank, the ICA, the local pub…

It feels idyllic. They haven’t forgotten that a trial will be held, eventually, or that technically they are in exile for their safety, but they barely mention it. They talk instead about the very long ago or the very recent, about Steve’s work, about Sam and Natasha, about Haiti, and London, about the dreadful political climate in the west, about last night’s TV, about sports and food, about their families. 

“She’d be proud of you,” Bucky says, after Steve’s impassioned description of Shield’s work in Haiti. “Sarah, I mean. Your dad, too, I bet.”

The well-meant comments hit Steve point-blank in the chest. This, he realises, is the first time he has been able to remember his mother with someone who actually _knew_ her since just after she died. 

Spontaneous tears prickle at the corners of his eyes. He wants to be vulnerable for a moment, to follow that feeling and let it out, safe in the knowledge that Bucky will carry him through it. But he can’t ask that of Bucky right now, he tells himself.

Bucky’s not quite the same as he was, Steve can see now. Bucky doesn’t always remember everything. He’s great at covering for memory lapses – it’s second nature after all these years – but sometimes he falters, looks blank, admits he’s lost the thread. He makes constant use of the wall planners, his phone and his ever-present notebook, complete with little tags, to make sure he forgets nothing important. It makes Steve flutter with guilt and sadness for his best friend, but Bucky isn’t interested in sympathy. He has plenty of tricks and techniques, and anyway, he’s improving all the time.

“ _Poor guy sounds utterly traumatised_ ,” Sam had said. Steve tries not to focus on that, though. They’re together now, and things will get steadily better. Bucky seems happy to be there; he’s an easy guest, always keen to help with chores, and if there’s a tightness to his smile sometimes, well, Steve thinks, it’s understandable. In fact, it’s amazing that Bucky is coping so well. 

*

“It’s just not fuckin’ TRUE! I mean, yeah, it’s deliberately hateful, but it’s also BULLSHIT!”

Bucky throws his rolled-up socks at the TV, striking a dead-eyed, pink-faced, weird-haired Presidential candidate square on the nose.

“I know,” Steve calls over his shoulder from the kitchen. “It’s a joke. Don’t worry, there’s no way he will win this.”

“I hope you’re right, pal,” Bucky shakes his head. “Take it from someone who knows. People fall for dumb shit all the fuckin’ time, if it’s what they want to hear.”

*

A few days into Bucky’s stay, Steve brings him down to his local pub, where they wait for Sam to swing by after work.

Steve goes up to the bar and takes the drinks over to a sunlit corner table while Bucky goes to the bathroom. When he returns, he catches Steve staring and laughs at him. Steve smiles back, unbothered; seeing Bucky walk towards him is not a sight he’s got used to yet, not in a whole childhood and a ten-year interregnum and an intensive, intercontinental, life-and-death romance. 

Bucky rolls his eyes in mock exasperation. “You’re something else, Rogers,” he says, gliding into his chair.

Steve keeps smiling as he reaches for his pint.

“Why do you look like that?” Bucky asks.

“Like what?” 

“That. When I say your name.”

“Oh!” Steve flushes slightly and glances out of the window. “It’s just I haven’t been called ‘Rogers’ for so long. I’m not called that anymore.”

“Oh shit, I’m sorry! I totally didn’t realise…”

“No, it’s OK. It’s nice.”

“So what’s your… who are you now?”

Steve looks suddenly shifty, hesitates, but and while he’s forming an explanation, Sam Wilson walks in.

“SO, Byew-chanan, where’s this famous ‘Bucky’?”

Bucky splutters. Steve is puce. He shrugs, smiling apologetically at Bucky, but Bucky stares back at him, half teasing, half moved.

“’Bucky’. Buchanan. Right. Of fucking _course_ ,” Sam says, looking from of them to the other. “Bucky is no-one’s actual _name_.”

Bucky recovers himself in time to retort, “You think my name is dumb?”

Sam chuckles. “It’s not the only dumb thing about you if you’re gonna keep hanging out with this prick,” he says, jerking a thumb at Steve.

Bucky laughs, his eyes crinkling at the sides, and sticks out a hand to shake Sam’s, and Steve begins to wonder if it was a mistake to introduce them.

*

**Nat** : How’s it going with Bucky?

**Steve** : Exhausting.

**Nat** : In a good way?

**Steve** : ;) ;) ;)

*

Bucky’s body isn’t quite how Steve remembers it, from furtive glances on hot days – it’s… _harder_ now, sinewy, scarred and efficient. Steve tries to get his mouth on every inch of it, as if his kisses can somehow create an invisible forcefield to protect against any further harm. He finds out where Bucky’s ticklish, or weak, and where to nibble on his abdomen to make his hips jerk.

Exploring him is such a pleasure, because Bucky is _responsive_. He succumbs even to Steve’s gentlest touch, kissing back with a passion that reduces Steve to animal instinct. He loves that Bucky will squirm, and close his eyes, and battle to stay quiet until he can’t anymore; it soon becomes his mission to find new ways to make Bucky let go, and let him hear those beautiful sounds.

He never really gets to gloat, though, because Bucky gets him back. With kiss-swollen lips, dilated pupils and messy hair, he’s more cock-teasingly gorgeous than Steve can handle, and when those lips turn mischievous, there’s nothing Steve can do. Bucky was always good at whatever he turned his hand to, and twelve, thirteen, fourteen years’ worth of unconsummated lust make for the kind of sex Steve almost feels he could brag about. In the right circumstances.

Sometimes, he’s left feeling stunned and dreamy. Other times he rolls over feeling all-powerful, like the Superman Bucky once called him. He thinks Bucky feels the same way; there are times when he laughs, cracks stupid jokes afterwards, and times when he’s quiet and trembly, almost awkward, until Steve pulls him in close.

So maybe Bucky’s bodyclock would adjust quicker if they spent more time out of bed, but hey, they’ve got time. The world outside is full of stresses, and there are demons in their heads, but Steve doesn’t see a need to face them just yet. In bed everything makes sense. And if he sometimes half-wakes during the night and finds the sheets beside him cold, staggers blearily out into the lounge to find Bucky staring at cartoons, well. Jetlag can take a while to get over.


End file.
